Our collection of artifacts recovered from sunken Spanish galleons was a
natural for bi-lingual (spanish) captioning.  We insisted upon a native
Spanish speaker witha background in historical studies.  Visually we
worried about cluttering our cases, but we too felt access was the issue
and that this collection called for it.  However, (let no good deed go
unpunished), our South Florida location - 185 miles south of Miami and 90
miles north of Cuba - means that we have an unusually high visitation of
Spanish speakers.  Our Spanish text panels turned into a nightmare, as
Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, and Central Americans each politely
point out to our chief curator our translation errors.  Dozens of visitors
have pointed to DIFFERENT spots.  Before we were prepared to surrender our
good intentions, we had the translation done for us by the Museo Naval in
Madrid, reviewed by the Latin-American Chamber of Commerce, Flagler
College language professors, the Spanish Trade Group in America, the Miami
Herald's el Herald journalists,  et al.  They like our visitors were
unable to agree on a translation.  In the end, we downed the panel, and
replaced it with a pamphlet guide to the museum in Spanish.  This we
publish in French, German, Italian, Portugese, and Japanese.  Complaints
have been eliminated.   Staff is now clearly divided on the issue of
pamphlets, some think visitors aren't reading them (evidenced by their not
complaining), some think the prblem's solved.


Melissa Kendrick
Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society Museum
Key West, FL   [log in to unmask]