I certainly think that the reference number should be put on a caption. Not
only is it potentially useful for researchers it also may be useful when you
take down the exhibition and you need to return all the exhibits to their
proper place. This may be especially helpful if the staff who set up the
exhibition are no longer working at the archive. Far for being "clutter" I
think the reference number is an integral part of a caption and makes it
look more professional. I have assisted in the setting up of several
exhibitions at different archives and all of them included the reference
numbers.
Andrew L Morrison
>From: "Jones, Aidan" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "Jones, Aidan" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: exhibition: captions
>Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 18:22:49 +0100
>
>Personally I am very firmly on the side of those who wish to include the
>reference number in the caption.
>
>Failure to do this somewhat undermines your position when you are
>subsequently confronted by someone wanting to see "that item from the
>exhibition about three months ago - I can't remember exactly what it was,
>although I do remember it included some funny old-fashioned handwriting".
>
>OK - I know that most people will simply ignore the reference. But in a
>small way, it helps to educate the public in the general concept that
>document references are important and are worth noting, and that the
>archive staff cannot invariably be expected to remember everything that
>people might have looked at in the past.
>
>Simply adding a reference shouldn't significantly clutter up the boards -
>unless you happen to be working in an office which at some stage has
>adopted an absurdly long and convoluted referencing system, which tries to
>cover too many different things at once. (Actually, I'm not ruling out the
>possibility that offices like that might happen to exist ... however,
>that's an issue for another day.)
>
>A good caption should seldom be any longer than four or five sentences at
>the most - otherwise few people will linger long enough to read it. It
>needs to be concise, so the individual words might have to be selected with
>great care. Remembering Kipling's "six honest serving men" (What, Why,
>When, How, Where, Who?) can sometimes help if struggling for sufficient
>ideas of what to include.
>
>A long document in difficult handwriting will very probably require a
>summary. However, I suspect that a complete transcript or a lengthy
>translation, just for the purposes of a single exhibition, is rarely an
>effective use of time.
>
>Aidan Jones,
>Cumbria Record Office & Local Studies Library, Barrow.
>
>
>****************
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Archivists, conservators and records managers.
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Charlotte Berry
>Sent: 01 September 2006 17:02
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: exhibition: captions
>
>Hello all,
>
>We are currently putting an exhibition together with display boards
>containing digitised images of documents from the archive. Is it usual
>practice to include the precise document ref no in the caption? I would
>have thought so, but have been having a Friday afternoon debate with
>colleagues who don't agree, as they think this will clutter up the boards.
>They think that a title/description, date and acknowledgement (some
>documents are from different source repositories) is enough to be going on
>with.
>
>Advice from anyone who has experience of exhibitions would be much
>appreciated. Please post to the list, as others might be interested in
>your replies!
>
>Thanks,
>
>Charlotte
>
>
>
>--
>Charlotte Berry
>Archivist
>Special Collections
>Old Library
>University of Exeter
>Prince of Wales Road
>EXETER EX4 4SB
>UK
>
>Tel: 01392 263879 (direct) or 01392 262096
>Fax: 01392 263871
>
>
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