Elizabeth-
This year I had the pleasure of travelling to Finland to speak at the European Registrar's Conference, and of course, view a bunch of museums. 
In every museum I visited, each and every text panel and label was presented in Finnish, Swedish, and English. In other places, Russian was also included in the mix, and most places had laminated packets for people speaking other languages. In general, I noticed that labels were pretty succinct, and used a picture of a Finnish/Swedish/British flag system to say "Hey, here's your language."

I took some photos for twitter under the #iTweetMuseums, but here are some examples:
Three language short label and labeling on handling item. 
This is a panel that has Finnish and English on the outside, but opens up to show the same info in Swedish and Russian (military history, so lots of detail)
Another short panel with the adorable Kiasma monster
Pedestal label for multiple items (there were numbers on the objects corresponding to the information on the panel- you can see the panel is a bit bigger to accommodate each language)

Something I noticed was that sometimes the English translation would be longer/shorter than the Finnish or Swedish one, just due to words not having direct translations or simply having more characters, so I imagine the design challenge is immense. I got the feeling that the designers had learned to embrace white space. 

I think any effort you make towards helping non-English speakers access your collection will be a worthwhile effort. As a non-Finnish speaker, it certainly made me feel welcome and included and helped me appreciate what I was looking at and learn a bit more about a country and culture I had never visited. 

Cheers,
Tracey 

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:06 PM, EIizabeth Katherine Cruzado Carranza (kcrzdcrr) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
We are in the process of translating all of our museum exhibit labels into multiple languages.  I will appreciate any suggestions on how best to present that information to the public.  At this point, we are considering numbering each text panel, then having a photo of the exhibit with the numbered the text panes and then the translations listed by number below.  This process will take up about two 8.5 x 11 pages for each exhibit case.  We intend to laminate the sheets and make them available in a three-ring binder.

I will appreciate any suggestions on alternative ways to present this information. 

Thanks very much,

Elizabeth Cruzado

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