Just one (not-so-minor) quibble.   Cost need not be a factor in creating
good labels.   Clear and accurate text, appropriate type face and proper
placement can be done with a word processing program (or even a typewriter),
mounted on cardboard and taped to the wall.  I do it all the time.

janice

Janice Klein
(Chair, Small Museum Adminstrators Committee, AAM)
Director, Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
(a tiny unisolated museum)
[log in to unmask]
www.mitchellmuseum.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Patricia Reynolds
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 12:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Poor Exhibit Label Text


A good label is great, but it isn't enough.  Many visitors will be unable
to read them, even if made to universal design standards: they will have
left their glasses at home, be literate in other languages, be too young to
have the skills, have learning difficulties/disabilities, have insuffucuent
sight, and so on and so forth. So alongside the good labels, other ways at
getting at their content are needed.

Oddly, middle-sized institutions seem to find this hardest.  Big
institutions with corporate standards to uphold, often wait until they can
do something well before they do it at all.  Tiny institutions are
isolated, and so good practice doesn't reach them, and when it does, what
is presented as 'affordable' is half their operating budget (acess on a
shoestring is, however, achievable, and there are many examples of
lights-under-bushels good practice).

I have my own favourite bad label, which used to be displayed at a museum
which I was employed to re-interpret.  The tex was 12 inches square of
tiny, justified, capitals.  After several attempts to read it, I copied it
down letter by letter, and then read my transcript.  Something pretty
similar is still displayed on a civic building in Carlisle (UK).

Best wishes to all,

Pat
'




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