A DYNAMIC MODEL FOR DOCUMENTING SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS

by

Glen Myers

August 29, 2005

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in

Museum Studies

in the

School of Education and Liberal Arts

at

John F. Kennedy University

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION Research Questions and Project Objectives Methodology Limitations Product Description Glossary

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II. BACKGROUND Evolving Information Technologies Documents in Museums Affordances of Documents The Role of Special Exhibitions in Museums Dissolving Boundaries: Virtual Exhibitions Documenting the Exhibition – Past and Present New Complexities – New Solutions

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III. FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS Surveys Interviews Digital Media Preservation New Archiving Models Summary

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VI. RECOMMENDATIONS

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V. BIBLIOGRAPHY 145

VI. APPENDICES Appendix 1 – Cover Letter & Survey Instrument Appendix 2 – Survey Responses Appendix 3 – Interviews Conducted

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VII. PRODUCT Criteria Guide for Documenting Exhibition Resources 175

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INTRODUCTION

Images from the 2004 Oakland Museum of California exhibition “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era”

In 2004, the Oakland Museum of California launched a retrospective

exhibition about the Vietnam era which provided a multi-sensory

experience for the visitor. The exhibition included artifacts, taped

interviews, film clips, and music during the period of the Cold War

through the Vietnam War in California. A cut-away section of a World

Airways DC-8 passenger cabin offered an immersive experience to

visitors as they listened to stories from Vietnamese refugees and American

soldiers flying to California. In addition to the exhibition itself, there were

seven public programs that included poetry readings, personal accounts of

survival and resettlement, and the popular music scene of the day.

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This multi-faceted exhibition illustrates how state-of-the-art design

and interpretation modes are often used by museums in today’s special

exhibitions. Within the many layers of interpretation and experiences it

offered to the public were stories of personal upheaval and assimilation

from the participants on both sides of the divisive Vietnam War. It

juxtaposed experiences of refugees, draftees, career military people,

college students, and other participants from that tumultuous period. The

exhibition design utilized multiple avenues of interpretation such as

printed material, recorded interviews, audio wands offering different

languages, video images, and feedback opportunities – giving the visitor a

variety of ways to construct personal meanings of their remembered, or

newly learned, experiences of the war. Lastly, it extended the exhibition

experience beyond the exhibit hall to supplemental programs, lectures, and

a website.

How can such a heterogeneous production be documented

accurately with any coherence? What would the documentation look like,

and how would it function? If we use the meaning of documentation here

as “evidence or proof,” and the verb to document meaning “to record” that

evidence, then a conceptual construct begins to take shape. The

specialized information that describes the totality of a museum exhibition

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– research, design, text wall panels, labels, images, sounds, videos,

interactive elements, and computer software – represent intellectual

resources that can be documented. In this context, the noun document can

encompass all of these forms as carriers of information. This

documentation can be as complex as the exhibition itself, and can serve a

variety of functions depending on the needs of the museum. The requisites

of these documents would determine their form. Such needs might include

their level of accessibility (to museum staff and the public), readability (as

text or digital files), longevity, mobility, organization, and thoroughness.

Most museum staff undertake some documentation of their special

exhibitions, but the effort is often inconsistent between departments and

exhibits. Moreover, the information that is documented often reflects the

needs and capacities of an earlier, pre-digital information era. Is it enough

for a museum to accumulate copies of loan documents, lists of displayed

artifacts, label and text plate content, and installation floorplans? Will

color slides suffice to capture the exhibition environment created for the

visitors?

This master’s project argues that many of today’s exhibitions, as

typified by the above example, cannot be adequately documented by the

traditional archival practices of saving records, images, and other physical

collateral that make up the business of the exhibition but not the content,

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design, and experience of the exhibition. The Oakland Museum of

California is a case in point.1 Special exhibitions such as What’s Going

On? are documented differently within each department, with little

oversight to ensure consistency and accessibility. The typical visual record

of the exhibition consists solely of color slides, and few efforts are made

to document the designed environment and visitor experience. This

fragmented documenting approach to such a rich and complex exhibition

is insufficient for capturing its essential contextual and experiential

qualities

The diversity of interpretive methods used in today’s exhibitions

such as interactivities and multimedia formats, and the rapid evolution of

digital technology as manifested in computers, software, and the internet,

add new layers of contextual information and thus, new documenting

challenges to contemporary exhibits. In the past, special exhibitions have

largely been regarded by museum staff as ephemera, which had little, if

any, purpose after the exhibition closed. Author Mary Anne Staniszewski,

researching the history of exhibition installations at New York’s Museum

of Modern Art, describes exhibition “installation design as an aesthetic

medium and historical category” which has been “officially and

1 Further descriptions and sources of OMC’s documenting practices will be detailed in subsequent sections.

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collectively forgotten.”2 The first argument I found in my research urging

museums to better document their exhibits came from Thomas J.

Schlereth, Historian at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana in 1984.

Schlereth pointed out,

More often than not, a major exhibition is torn down before anyone thinks ‘to collect’ it as an important artifact of its time and place. I find it ironic that we who lavish such care upon the creations of others treat our own creations with almost total indifference.3 The most common way for exhibitions to be remembered and re-

visited was via the exhibition catalog – ranging from a simple compilation

of curator statement and selected images to a research-laden and well-

designed tome. However, many of today’s multi-sensory exhibitions

create a great deal of personal experience, historical context, and

intellectual capital for the museum that would be difficult to record by an

exhibition catalog or other traditional archiving means.

The personal and sometimes emotional experiences of visitors are

the most elusive to capture, but can be partially documented by audience

feedback forms and visitor’s comment books. The design of the exhibits

and surrounding space, however, can play a integral part in evoking

personal experiences, as can other sensory elements such as sounds,

2 Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998) xxi. 3 Thomas J. Schlereth, “Contemporary Collecting for Future Recollecting,” Museum Studies Journal (Spring 1984): 23-30.

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moving images, walking surfaces, and lighting. These environmental

elements need to be recorded in some manner in order to document the

exhibition in totality. By capturing these elements as part of a

comprehensive record of the exhibition, more of the cultural and historical

context from which it grew out of will be preserved as well.

The advantages of preserving the historical context can be clearly

seen in the 1991 exhibition, Degenerate Art – The Fate of the Avant-

Garde in Nazi Germany at the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art

(LACMA)4. This show was a re-interpretation and reconstruction of the

1937 German Socialist exhibition, “Entartete Kunst” (“Degenerate Art”),

created by the Nazis to assault modernist art and its practitioners while

elevating the National Socialist Party’s vision of acceptable art.

4 Stephanie Barron, “Degenerate Art” : The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991).

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Cover of the Exhibition Guide for Entartete Kunst, 1937

Although experiential documentation of the type discussed above

was not intentionally kept from the original exhibition, there were many

photographs, archival records, motion picture footage, and visitor

recollections that made it possible to substantially re-create the exhibition,

54 years later.

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The Dada wall in Room 3 of Entartete Kunst, 1937

As a result, the LACMA exhibition offered to the visitor a profound

contextual experience of history that juxtaposed the enforced morality of

Nazi Germany and the cultural milieu of 1991 Los Angeles. This new

exhibition could not have been re-created without the surviving

documentation from the original exhibition.

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Documentation ideally preserves the essential narrative of an

exhibition that might otherwise be subject to fallible memory. If only a

few objects or galleries are recorded, in time they will become the memory

of that exhibition, whether or not there were other substantive elements

that would support a different overall interpretation.

A case in point was the enormously popular exhibition The Family

of Man at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), opening in 1955.

Noted photographer and curator Edward Steichen selected 503 black and

white photographic images out of nearly 10,000 culled from the Life

Magazine archives and new submissions from around the world.5 The

images were chosen for their ability to visually communicate the common

humanity that was shared by all people. Steichen felt that after two world

wars and the looming threat of nuclear destruction, the nation needed an

exhibition that celebrated the commonalities between people to

compensate for the recent horrors of war. The show was a great success,

breaking all attendance records at MoMA up to that time. A popular

companion book (which is still in print) was produced featuring all of the

images from the exhibition – except one.

The single image missing from the book – and apparently missing

from the collective memory of the exhibition as well – was that of a large 5 Eric J. Sandeen, Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 44.

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color transparency of a hydrogen bomb explosion, displayed alone in a

dark room.6 Walking in the direction of this room, the visitor would not

first see the color image, but only see a lone photo of a dead Korean War

soldier mounted at the end of a somberly lit alcove.

6 Ibid., 48.

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(Family of Man, Museum of Modern Art, NY)

Then the visitor would walk past the image (visitor traffic flow was

tightly controlled at this point) and enter the darkened space to be

confronted by the blazing image of a mushroom cloud.

(Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America)

This information was not recorded in the exhibit documentation

anywhere, and Eric Santeen rediscovered it while researching the personal

papers of Steichen’s assistant, Wayne Miller. It is, in fact, Miller’s wife

and children who are shown here viewing the image of the bomb, while he

was photographing the completed exhibition for his own records. The

exhibition book, The Family of Man, was hurriedly assembled in 1955

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featuring all of the images except, curiously, this one. Yet this image may

have been the most dramatic moment for the visitors, having just seen

only black and white photos up to this point. The six-by-eight foot

glowing red and orange transparency was itself a new technology of which

most people were unaware, making the experience all the more shocking.7

Thus an element critical to understanding the exhibit’s pointed

message of nuclear weapons leading to the destruction of humanity had

almost dissolved from the collective memory. Perhaps this also helps to

explain why the exhibition has engendered criticism over the years as a

saccharin and culturally myopic production. Without the visual

exclamation point provided by the color image, the impact of the

remaining exhibition images – showing people from around the world

participating in common personal and family rituals – was diminished by

the absence of the nightmarish scenario of nuclear destruction. Here is an

example of both historical context and profound experiential information

missing because of incomplete documentation.

However, is the only reason to document exhibitions for their

historical value? Before the capabilities of digital technology were

developed, this might have been true. The pre-digital informational tools

that curators had at their disposal were simple and seemingly permanent:

7 Ibid.

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Pencils, pen, paper, typewriters, carbon paper, mimeographs, and

photographic film were tools of their trade. Before word processors (then

quickly followed by computers and internet communication), a file cabinet

and a curator’s memory were sufficient to reasonably preserve the

essential elements of their exhibitions.

This status quo was changed forever by the development of digital

technology for communication and information management. Analog

forms of information such as mimeographs, photographic film, audio and

video tapes have been quickly replaced with digital forms that, by

themselves, have no visual analogy to the information they represent. In

the 1990s, the communications industry began to see the potential of

blending these digital forms used in telecommunications, computers, and

the internet into new applications. The term, convergence, was coined to

describe the possibility of converting all information into digital form.

Once digitized, all data become the same in structure at a fundamental

level, and any combination of data can be sent to any location and

reincarnated in any format.8

8 The Center for the Study of Technology and Society “Why Study Convergence?” http://www.tecsoc.org/convergence/whatsconvergence.htm (13 April 2005). Another useful discussion about convergence related to telecommunications can be found from: Audin, Gary.“Architectures for Convergence.” Business Communications Review, October 2004 supp, 4-8. WilsonSelectPlus. OCLC. File BBPI0470160 (13 April 2005).

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The implications of convergence for museum exhibitions are

tremendous. New ways of creating, storing, and sharing information

become possible. One can easily manipulate images and endlessly copy

and edit text. Similarly, one can easily produce and store audio-visual

information such as sounds, music, oral histories, pictures, and movie

clips. Digital surrogates of fragile artifacts can aid in their preservation

and at the same time increase their exposure to the public. The digital

methods of design and graphic production for labels and visual exhibit

elements offer more sophisticated options and possibilities for re-use. As a

result, all data created for exhibitions – textual, audio, visual, and

experiential – can now be repurposed in endless ways that can benefit the

museum.

For example, museum staff can reuse taped oral histories in new

contexts and repackage them into new combinations for use in educational

programs. Such a case was illustrated by Laura Mann of Mediatrope

Interactive Studio.9 Mann described how museums can re-purpose audio

cassette tour messages that were produced for special exhibitions into a

permanent digital collection audio guide. The recorded audio interviews

conducted with curators, artists and other experts have come to be

recognized as hugely valuable resources that can be mined repeatedly for 9 Mann, Laura “Content Reader Comments on JFK Masters Project.” email to author, laura@mediatrope.com, 7 June 2005.

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different interpretive programs. Other examples of repurposing could

include curators and outside scholars being able to digitally store and

access exhibition research, or Exhibition staff could re-edit images and

video clips for a traveling version of the exhibition and for use on a

website. In other words, the exhibition has provided the museum with new

intellectual capital that can reach new audiences to fulfill its mission while

serving to promote the museum as well.

This is the final and perhaps most compelling reason of this project:

investigating these issues and searching for solutions to document special

exhibitions. This project proposes that museums need to document their

special exhibitions with the same degree of diligence as they do their

physical collections. The methods to do so, however, will differ

significantly from traditional collections management practices which are

largely concerned with cataloging, tracking, and classifying material

objects. In addition to these physical objects, exhibits can include

multimedia elements, performances, lectures, classes, design features – all

of which contribute to the totality of the exhibition, but do not fit neatly

into a collections-based archive system.

Archive staff will be challenged in capturing these intangible exhibit

elements. Discerning exactly what to document, what manner of

documenting is most appropriate, and adapting changing technologies to

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the documenting process will require new understandings of the nature of

information and its uses. The fundamental differences between

information forms such as paper, film, video, magnetic tape, and digital

files will mean different preventative conservation approaches as well.

I have chosen the adjective dynamic in the title of this project

because it describes the necessary characteristics for an effective

documenting system that can accommodate the variety of information

sources and offer repurposing capabilities. A dynamic model of

documentation can be “characterized by continuous change, activity, or

progress,”10 rather than stasis and immutability. This distinction is

important because more exhibition information will be created and stored

in digital form as time progresses, and, as will be shown, the best approach

to preserving digital assets is to proactively refresh storage media and

migrate data to new software. This approach is essentially a dynamic one,

requiring constant change and progress to keep the digital data readable

and accessible. Dynamic also refers to the unique interconnecting qualities

of hypertext and hypermedia. These new information forms are used

throughout the internet allowing users to link to other information

(websites, for instance) in any non-linear direction desired. These new

10 www.yourdictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary).

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forms can be applied to exhibition information and resources in endless

ways, to an almost unlimited audience.

Dynamic is appropriate in non-digital contexts as well. It describes

an approach to using the exhibition information in new ways to expand

audiences and promote the museum as mentioned previously. Rather than

just collect and store exhibit information for the historical record, a

dynamic documenting model will keep the information accessible for all

museum staff to use as resources in their own work. Such a model will

allow upgrades and revisions of the information to maintain its relevancy

to contemporary audiences.

This project also explores the ways that traditional staff roles in

museums might need to change in order to effectively manage evolving

information technologies. New combinations of skills that have previously

existed in separate departments (such as collections management and

information technology) will be required to handle the interdisciplinary

exhibit resources created.

Fortunately, the same digital technology that is making possible

increasingly complex exhibitions can offer new solutions to store,

manipulate, and disseminate the intellectual capital created for them.

Furthermore, while these challenges and solutions are focused on

exhibitions within this project, the repurposing, restructuring, and

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rethinking that is needed here will benefit all museums as they adapt to the

changing informational landscape.

Research Questions & Project Objectives

In order to understand the essential issues of information

management and dissemination relating to museum exhibitions, I

formulated the following research question to guide my inquiry:

1. What is a document, and the corollary, what is documentation? How has digital technology changed the meaning and means of documenting? Who creates and who controls the documents?

2. What is the role of a special exhibition, and how has that role changed? How has the internet affected exhibition design and function, and what possibilities do virtual exhibitions offer?

3. Why and how have exhibitions been documented in the past? What kind of documentation might be needed for today’s exhibitions? Are new documenting models needed to accommodate the growing complexities of exhibitions?

4. How can new technologies make the documenting of exhibitions more efficient or complete? What challenges need to be addressed and what solutions are offered by the technology?

The objectives of this project are to investigate the issues and

possibilities of exhibition documentation in relation to new concepts of

information management and technologies. This investigation will

illuminate the current thought and practices within the museum profession

regarding documenting their exhibitions, and point towards feasible

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solutions that will help museum staff manage their exhibition resources

more effectively.

Methodology

The methodologies I chose for this project consisted of a literature

review, interviews with a wide range of professionals in the museum field,

and a survey instrument. The first mention I found of the idea that

museums should endeavor to fully document their exhibitions was in

Thomas Schlereth’s 1984 article, “Contemporary Collecting for Future

Recollecting” in Museum Studies Journal.11 The scarcity of literature on

this subject served as a stimulus to investigate this issue further. The

interviews with a variety of museum professionals were needed to obtain

the broadest perspective of exhibit documenting issues affecting all

departmental functions of the museum – from administration to collections

management to curatorial and programming to information technology.

The survey instrument was designed to illuminate the current thinking and

practices of museum staff responsible for documenting exhibitions, as well

as to provide a vehicle to describe documenting challenges and solutions

using real world examples.

11 Thomas J. Schlereth, “Contemporary Collecting for Future Recollecting,” Museum Studies Journal (Spring 1984): 23-30.

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Literature Review

Many useful sources offered a contextual backdrop for the need to

document exhibitions. From the 1960s to the 1980s, new museological and

historiographic commitments of contemporary collecting, material and

popular culture, and community engagement began to redefine museums,

their collections, and their exhibitions in relation to their audiences. These

shifts in thought can be tracked through reports and proceedings of the

annual conferences of the American Association of Museums (AAM) and

American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), the journal

Exhibitionist, and UNESCO’s Museum International.

There are very few professional reference books that address the

aspects of documenting exhibitions, and those that do – such as The

Manual of Museum Exhibitions12 and The New Museum Registration

Methods13 – only briefly mention the subject. The best substantive

sources of examples of the need for documenting historically significant

exhibitions in recent years are found in anthologies such as Exhibiting

12 Barry Lord and Gail Dexter Lord, ed., The Manual of Museum Exhibitions (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2002) 13 Rebecca A. Buck and Jean Allman Gilmore, ed., The New Museum Registration Methods (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1998).

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Dilemmas: Issues of Representations at the Smithsonian.14 Other richly

detailed sources of information came from retrospective studies of specific

exhibitions such as Picturing an Exhibition – The Family of Many and

1950s America and “Degenerate Art” – The Fate of the Avant-Garde in

Nazi Germany. A notable exception to the dearth of books about the

historical significance of exhibition design is Mary Anne Staniszewski’s

The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the

Museum of Modern Art,15 which provided indispensable examples of

historically, politically, and socially significant exhibitions.

Professional Interviews

I used interviews to provide case-specific information about

problems and solutions of documenting exhibitions encountered in the

daily work of museums. I sought a full range of museum professionals and

related positions – curators, registrars, educators, historians, information

specialists, exhibition designers, and authors. (The names and positions of

my interviewees are listed in Appendix 3.) I solicited commentary related

to exhibit documentation from the perspectives of exhibition design,

14 Amy Henderson and Adrienne L. Kaeppler, ed., Exhibiting Dilemmas: Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997). 15 Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).

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installation, documentation, curation, information management and

technological issues. My rationale for this broad canvassing was that I

suspected the obstacles to effective documentation were related to the lack

of exhibition documenting standards and organizational isolation of

museum departments. I felt that solutions to these challenges could only

be successful if all the perspectives of different departmental staff were

taken into account.

Surveys

I targeted art and history museums because the interpretive nature

of their special exhibitions provide valuable social and historical

contextual resources for documentation. Realizing that there are many

possible position titles for the museum staff who are responsible for

documenting exhibitions, I addressed the surveys to “Registrar / Exhibits

Records Manager.” In March, 2005, I mailed 102 surveys to museums in

the U.S. with more than 50 full-time staff, predicting that larger museums

would have the broadest range of methods and means to document their

exhibitions. These museums have a dedicated staff and budget for the

express purpose of archiving as part of their collections management

function, and they will most likely utilize a broad range of methods for

documentation that would include digital technologies for data

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management. I was also interested in seeing to what extent large museums

divided their documenting functions among the many departments.

The target museums were randomly chosen from the 2003 Official

Museum Directory. I also tried to include at least one museum from each

state, making an exception to the “50 full-time staff” rule in instances

where the largest museum in a particular state did not meet that

requirement. (The introductory letter, survey instrument, and survey

responses can be found in Appendices 1 and 2.)

My survey instrument asked a comprehensive range of questions

concerning the current state of exhibit documentation, utilizing yes/no,

multiple choice, ranking, and open-ended forms. To glean as much

information as possible in a two-page survey, I essentially asked

respondents, what their museums document from their exhibitions (or if

they do not document them, why not?); how they go about documenting

(offering the respondents a range of options from saving only physical

elements to saving only digital elements); who in their organization

documents exhibitions (multiple answers possible); and why they

document their exhibitions. In addition, there were opportunities for the

respondents to describe specifically what had not been saved, and if/why

was it sought by staff later; what benefits their museum gained by

documenting its exhibitions; what problems were encountered with

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documenting exhibits; what solutions they have found helpful and would

recommend to other museums; and what further comments they would

like to make on the subject.

Limitations

This project is primarily concerned with special exhibitions that

provide significant social and historical contextual resources that are

worth documenting. Permanent or long-term exhibitions are not included

in the scope of this project for a number of reasons. They are certainly

worthy of documenting, but the time lag between such exhibition’s life

cycle and the pace of evolving technologies make a broader study

difficult. Permanent exhibitions tend to have more comprehensive records

and institutional memory invested in them. The length of time (in years)

that permanent exhibitions remain in place make them an inappropriate

model for examining new modes of exhibitry and pedagogy. Special

exhibitions, on the other hand, represent a moment in time that can

realistically be captured to include all of the content, design elements,

visitor experience, and technologies current at the time.

While technological solutions to documenting needs are discussed,

specific software and hardware are not emphasized because they are in a

constant state of evolution at this time. Rather, the concepts and models of

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documenting vis-à-vis the growing technological capabilities are

presented. For instance, I discuss relational database software programs as

one of many digital software tools available to museum staff, but no

particular software name is recommended. Similarly, I use CD and DVD

media as examples of a generic type of optical storage media, but I do not

specify the various industry formats such as CD-R and DVD-RAM. It is

the media type and function that will be important in the discussions of

digital technology.

Product Description

As I researched the nature and history of information management

and technologies for this project, I realized that one of the fundamental

obstacles to exhibit documentation that museum staff face is the sheer

volume of information and the variety of forms it comes in. Any single

exhibit element can be easily documented within most museum’s existing

information framework, but the range of information against the backdrop

of continually evolving information storage and management technologies

makes the documenting a daunting task. This was borne out in many of

my interviews. When I asked my interview subjects what sort of “product”

would be most useful to them, invariably they asked for some sort of guide

to help them decide what and how to archive exhibit resources.

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To help clarify these issues and offer a framework for archive staff

to make informed decisions about the best ways to document exhibit

elements, I created a Criteria Guide for Documenting Exhibition

Resources. The guide is meant to be customizable for any museum or

exhibition. The first part of the guide is a comprehensive list of possible

exhibit elements and resources that museum staff might consider to

document. Such a list is useful because the broad range of sources (or

departments) and the information formats in which these resources are

created are often difficult to grasp in entirety. These have been collected

from my research and survey responses. The second part is a worksheet

that staff can use to select the expected use requirements for each element

listed in the first part. These include accessibility, revision potential,

longevity, search and sort requirements, and navigation requirements. The

selections made will point to suggestions for the best format – analog or

digital – to use.

The list and worksheet will provide an information management tool

that will help staff match the different affordances of information formats

to their particular archiving needs.

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Glossary of Relevant Terms

Accessibility: The ability or permission to gain access to information or resources. As used here, this pertains to who has access to exhibition data, and implies who has control of that accessibility.

Affordance: An affordance refers to a physical property of an object

that gives that object specific advantages, suggesting possibilities for action. For example, paper is lightweight and foldable, allowing it to be easily carried.

Analog: A form of data that has a physical or mechanical analogy to

the information it represents, such as film and phonograph records. (See Digital.) Generally, any information that is not in digital form can be described as analog form in this project.

Archive, archiving: In this project, these terms refer to the physical

place or act of organizing information and materials for preservation and access by museum staff. There are other connotations used in other circumstances, such as Archives meaning the total records of an institution or a specific collection of manuscripts. Rather than adhere to strict definitions that would be appropriate for professional archivists, these terms are used here in a general sense, appropriate to museums and their many variations of organized information and objects.

Digital: A form of data that is structured in a binary system of bits,

requiring computer software and hardware to be interpreted into readable form. (See Analog).

Document: In this project, document can be any carrier of

specialized information, such as a book, film, audio tape, or CD. Documentation, documenting: As used in “documenting the

exhibition”, this refers to recording the research, development, interviews, design, content, images, visitor experience, audience evaluation and attendance, or any other descriptive and experiential element.

Dynamic: As relating to “dynamic archives” this means that the

information and use of that information is in a state of constant use, revision, and upgrading, as opposed to a “static archives” meaning an unchanging and stagnant body of information that is vulnerable to

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obsolescence and loss of data. Dynamic is also used in this project to describe the fluid relationship between information, the creator of that information, and the consumer of the information.(See also Hypertext.)

Emulation: The act of creating computer software that mimics

obsolete computer platforms and operating systems in order to access old versions of software data.

Exhibit: Generally this term refers to a component of the larger

exhibition, such as specific text plates, images, interactive units, or multimedia elements.

Exhibition: This term will be used for the more common phrase,

special exhibition or temporary exhibition in this project mainly for brevity. Special exhibitions are open for a limited period of time and focus on a specific theme, period, collection, or other narrowly focused subject. There is a clear distinction here between a museum’s permanent exhibitions (which tend to be better documented and which often do not reflect the most current expression of a subject) and special exhibitions (which, by their nature, often feature very timely issues and new modes of interpretation).

Hypertext / Hypermedia: A form of electronic text that is non-

linear, editable, can link to other hypertext/media sources, and is used on an interactive screen. Hypermedia extends this definition to visual information, sound, animation, and other non-textual forms.

Migration: The act of transferring digital data from an older

software version to a newer version to maintain the readability of the data. Refreshing: The act of moving digital data from an older storage

media to fresh media of the same type (from old CD to new CD) or from outdated media to new media (audio tape to CD) in protect against data loss from media deterioration or obsolescence.

Repurpose: To find a new use for or to convert for use into another

format or product such as repurposing a book as a DVD. Technology: This project is concerned primarily with information

and digital technology, which can be simply defined here as a body of knowledge that is of use in fashioning tools for the storing and

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manipulation of information. Digital technology is specific to digital systems such as computers and software.

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BACKGROUND

When we use the phrase, document the exhibition or repurpose

exhibition resources, we are drawing on meanings that can be easily

misunderstood or are ambiguous unless it is clear how we are using them

in relation to our behavior and purpose – which can in turn have different

meanings depending on the historical and technological context we are

operating from.

To establish such a structure of meaning, I have framed the

following sections by defining the essential qualities and functions of

information technology, documents, and document management systems.

A key concept that will be discussed will be the affordances of different

forms of information, such as paper-based documentation and digital data.

Affordances refer to the physical properties of an object that gives that

object specific advantages, suggesting possibilities for action. For

example, paper is lightweight and foldable, allowing it to be easily carried,

thus affording mobility. In addition, the combination of different

information formats – analog and digital – can offer a significantly greater

set of capabilities than either by itself. The challenge to museum staff at

this time is discerning what combination and proportion of analog and

digital formats will provide the most useful set of information.

30

In the same manner, I examine fundamental questions about what

constitutes an exhibition in light of new forms and venues made possible

by digital technology. A discussion of the changing role of exhibitions will

examine how museums have become reliant on exhibitions as their

primary voice and economic engine to support their continued vitality. I

will show how prolonging and making accessible the exhibition content

will benefit the museum. Similarly, the complexity of experiential

offerings to exhibition audiences create important resources that museums

can take advantage of after the exhibition has closed, thus laying the

groundwork for this project’s premise that exhibitions represent significant

intellectual capital that is worthy of preserving and keeping dynamic.

The final section directly addresses exhibition documentation. To

provide a historical context I review traditional documenting practices of

exhibitions and then introduce new documenting concepts drawing on the

previous discussions. Using the conceptual framework constructed for

technology, documentation, and exhibitions within this Background

Section, I will bring the reader to a point where a new dynamic model of

documenting exhibitions can be imagined.

31

Evolving Information Technologies

Today’s rapidly evolving technologies of communication and

information management can give the impression that the new digital tools

at our disposal represent an abrupt change in our use of technology. This

viewpoint leads to a common expectation that digital forms of information

will fully replace paper-based information. In fact, digital technology –

and its capabilities – are simply the latest manifestation of information

technology that can be traced back to the earliest attempts to make

cuneiform marks on damp clay. The act of making regular impressions

with a marking tool to represent information is an early form of

technology, as is the later development of animal skins and papyrus sheets

to record marks on.

The advances in information technology progressed slowly for most

of human history. The educated and ecclesiastical elite controlled the

technology for recording, writing, and reading for centuries. Only the

economically or politically privileged had access to the tools (pens,

manuscripts) and the means (skills, education) to take advantage of the

technology of the day.16 Manuscript culture developed its own innovations

for managing information. The concepts of individual pages, chapter

16 Interestingly, the same political implications of who has access and the faculty to use technology continues to be an influence in the control and dissemination of information today.

32

divisions, paragraphing, and spaces between words grew out of the need to

better organize information for retrieval and efficiency within the

framework of manuscripts.17

In the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press was an

advance in information technology that created fundamental ways in

which we still use and organize information. Whereas manuscript culture

allowed individual differences in style and even content of copied works,

the information culture created by the printing press enabled standardized

text and textual devices. Print technology reinforced linear thought within

a hierarchical structure, as represented in books. Pagination, indices,

footnotes, and bibliographies became new information management

tools.18

Perhaps the most significant paradigm shift in information

technology in the 20th century, however, can be traced to the 1945 Atlantic

Monthly article, “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush.19 Bush

conceived an information management model that incorporated

mechanically-linked means to connect and retrieve data, in response to the

burgeoning amount of information in the post-war era. He observed that it

17 George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997), 21. 18 Ibid. 19 George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0, 7. The complete article can be seen at www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/aswemaythink.htm

33

was becoming too difficult for people in all professions to keep track of

new information and research, and that hierarchical and linear information

structures were creating obstacles to accessing data through the use of

rigid indices, alphanumeric systems, and categorical topic/sub-topic

models. The amount of data being created also made numeric and

categorical systems obsolete within a few years. Bush was challenging the

accepted modes of information management that had co-evolved with the

printing press. He envisioned a non-linear connectable information

retrieval device, called a memex. By using microfilm, translucent screens,

levers, and motors, the memex would function as a “memory supplement”

that would store books, records, and communications, allowing them to be

edited or deleted.

An early example of a computer-generated document system that

can be seen as descendent of the memex is the Star Information System

developed by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1981.20

Using the new concepts of Graphical User Interface (GUI) and “What You

See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) to create an editable image of a

document on a computer screen, the Star system allowed for the first time

text and images that, when formatted, would appear the same on the

20 Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office, p 5. Additional information can be seen on the History of Computing Project website, http://www.thocp.net/hardware/xerox_star.htm.

34

screen as when printed. The real significance of Star, however, lies in its

design as an information management tool designed as a personal

workstation for the casual user with minimal training. It was networked to

other stations, printers, and fileservers; and information shown on the

screen could be manipulated by a two-button mouse. Electronic

documents could be created, edited, and stored on the computer, and

simple commands and icons replaced the necessity for typed-in

commands. These features, familiar to us today, were revolutionary in

their capacity to redefine the very nature of information management.

Documents in Museums

According to authors John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid in The

Social Life of Documents, documents can be defined as carriers of

information 21 such as something “in” a book. We “send” or “deliver”

information in documents via hand-delivery or email. A single document

can also metamorphose into other forms as it is read, edited, sent, printed,

and so on. Consider an imagined life cycle of a typical museum document

concerning the theme for a new exhibition: the curator searches the

internet for ideas and compiles them on a Word document (digital). Then

she prints this preliminary list so she can take it to the museum archives to 21 This well-circulated article can be seen at www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue1/documents/

35

see if any similar exhibitions have been produced (paper). She finds some

information related to her idea, so she writes it down, then takes it back to

her office and adds it to her Word document on the computer (digital).

Then she emails it to other curators, the director, and a colleague outside

the museum for feedback (digital). The recipients of her email may choose

to read and edit it in digital form or print it out so they can think about it

off-site and write notes on it in a more reflective manner. She receives

back email versions that have been annotated by the other curators (with

comments and hyperlinks to interesting websites), a hard copy with

manuscript notes on it from the director (who has also attached a brochure

from a similar exhibition he visited last year), and a mailed version from

her friend (with related websites written on an attached post-it for her to

check out). After reviewing all of the returned versions of this document,

the curator writes a final exhibition proposal and both emails it to the full

museum staff and prints copies of it for her own records and to be

submitted to the museum archives.

This “document” has existed in digital and paper form, has been

edited both on the computer and by hand, and has had additional

information linked to it by physical attachment and digital links. The

primary function of the document, however, has not changed – that of

36

exploring exhibition ideas, gaining feedback and supplementary

information, and finalizing a preliminary proposal.

A document is not limited to a textual form (comprised only of text).

Radio and television programs are powerful documents in our culture that

provide a kind of social coordination as people can gather and discuss a

previous night’s television program22. The nightly newscast, an obvious

carrier of information, offers a daily ritual for some. Groups of people can

gain an implicit understanding of cultural behavior and community

through these sorts of documents. Movies, streaming audio and video,

websites, and computer animation all can be considered documents in

certain contexts and functions. This is an important point to consider

because many of these new forms of information serve as exhibit elements

today. Thus, “documenting the exhibition” would include capturing video

sequences, music, or interactive computer programs used in it. The

commonality of all of these forms is a dynamic relationship between the

information, the creator of that information, and the consumer of the

information.

Documents can be internally or externally oriented.23 Internal

documents would use commonly understood language and codes within

the group, and generally not be understandable nor relevant to those 22 Brown and Duguid, “The Social Life of Documents.” 23 Ibid.

37

outside the group. For example, internal exhibit documentation might

include artifact lists, condition reports, and correspondence. External

documents would use universally understood formats or language, or

present an approved communication or information that is explicit and

sensitive to audience standards. External exhibition documentation might

include final exhibit text, labels, images, research related to the exhibition,

and links to other exhibitions or information sources. An internal and an

external document does not necessarily denote two separate documents.

Rather, they may exist as different manifestations of the same document

involving different practices such as presenting information that can be

easily interpreted within a non-public group (e.g., curatorial staff), and

equivalent information that is usable by outsiders (e.g., high school

students).

It is easy to see how documents can also enforce boundaries by

controlling who has access to them and who has control over the

information that is carried by them.24 Prior to digital communication,

access to information was controlled by physical means such as lock and

key, privileged access, and geography. Now there are digital equivalents

of passwords, encryption, and restricted access to registered users. These

controls continue to be relevant to museums as they manage their analog

24 Ibid.

38

and digital informational resources. Such intellectual resources from an

exhibition will need to meet internal or external criteria in order to be

effectively (and safely) managed. The matter of who controls the

accessibility of information is possibly of a greater significance,

particularly in the digital realm where the line between the creator and the

user of the information can blur.

Before the development of digital technology, the fluid or fixed

quality of information was relatively easy to identify, and therefore to

manage. Orally-produced information (such as conversation, ritual, and

performance) would imply a degree of fluidity to it through the shared

knowledge that the producer was relying on memory and interpretation to

disseminate that information.25 Fixed information was just as recognizable

in the form of printed material. One could rely on the authorship of this

information through its physical form; revisions or editing of these forms

were visible, allowing the user to discern the original content from the

edited. There were even forms of information that crossed the fixable and

mutable boundaries – uncured clay tablets, chalkboards, and graphite

pencil on paper – but the physicality of these forms did not confuse the

relationship between the producer and user.

25 Ibid.

39

New technological advances in information production, however,

have forever changed the old structures of our information space. Brown

and Duguid express this well:

...what does seem to be inescapably different now is that the two, the transient and the immutable, are materially no longer exclusive. Now it’s possible to have mutability where once there was only fixity – in, for example, the digital document. Equally, to have fixity or capture, where once there was only transience – in, example, the analog recording.26

Here we see the real significance in the changing forms of information we

manage, and the key to understanding the essential differences of those

forms. It is not a matter of exclusively using either paper-based or digital

forms, but a matter of recognizing their advantages and disadvantages so

that a practical symbiosis of the two can exist in a documenting system.

By acknowledging the cultural and behavioral practices of information

management that have evolved over centuries, it will be easier to navigate

through our increasingly complex information space where both analog

and digital documents play a useful role.

Affordances of Documents

To better understand how to manage these information forms, it will

be helpful to look at the affordances of paper and digital documents. A

26 Ibid.

40

useful definition of affordance in relation to documents comes from The

Myth of the Paperless Office:

An affordance refers to the fact that the physical properties of an object make possible different functions for the person perceiving or using that object. In other words, the properties of objects determine the possibilities for action. 27

The properties of paper – thin, light weight, porous, foldable for

example – affords certain actions and behaviors with it, such as stacking it,

carrying it, writing on it, and resizing by folding it. In contrast, a digital

document will have very different affordances. A word-processing

document – being comprised of electronic bits on a computer hard disk –

is endlessly editable (unlike paper) and can quickly and easily be

electronically sent to other users via a network. There are limitations for

each set of affordances as well, as will be discussed further in this section.

Often the introduction of a new technology into an existing

information space will not produce the desired benefits, or even will fail

completely, leading to a return of the previous manner of doing things.

The authors Sellen and Harper give many such examples in their book,

and they found that a common cause of this failure is an inadequate

understanding of the information ecology that exists in the workplace.28 It

is not just the combination of technologies in an office, but the 27 Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office, 17. 28 Ibid., 192.

41

interdependencies between them and the behavior of the workers

interacting with the technologies and with each other. Every office and

museum will have a unique informational ecology that has evolved over

time. It is this complex interplay of people, technology, and work practices

that needs to be acknowledged before a new information technology can

be effectively put to use. Rather than attempting to simply replace an older

technology, it would be more beneficial to introduce new technologies that

will support and reinforce the existing information ecology.

An example of how one change in an office ecology can produce

unwanted changes might be seen in a common form of exhibition

archiving found in many museums – the exhibition binder. Whether the

binders were maintained by the registrar, curator, or museum librarian

(each with his or her own distinct documenting practices), the museum

staff has evolved a set of behaviors with the binders that interplay with

their own needs. Some long-term staff members may be so familiar with

the binder organization (or dis-organization, as the case may be) that they

do not require extensive finding aids as they go directly to the target

folder. As cumbersome as this scenario might seem, it has a certain built-

in efficiency borne of many years of use. If there was a decision from the

director to suddenly replace the old paper-based archives with a new high-

capacity fileserver with the intention of increasing efficiency of storing

42

and retrieving information, the results would not be assured by any means.

The practiced interactions between staff and the material would be broken.

Ways of retrieving, copying, annotating, and processing the exhibit

information would need to be re-learned by the staff, leading to frustration

and disarray.

A better approach would be to continue using the informational

structure of binders familiar to staff, and to find ways to add digital data

alongside them (such as DVDs in binder disk holders) and devise cross-

reference schemes to connect information in the binders to related data on

the new fileserver. This will preserve many of the established practices of

using the information, but also will initiate a merging of paper and digital

forms that can evolve together taking advantage of the affordances from

both forms. Both the authors of Hypertext 2.0 and The Myth of the

Paperless Office (writing from different perspectives) corroborate that

information management behavior is slow to change, and, in fact, can be

powerfully resistant to change. Paper, and its affordances, have been a part

of the work process for centuries, and cannot be simply replaced by digital

systems (which are not equivalent) without necessitating a change in work

practices as well.

Affordances of Paper Documents

43

In spite of the promises of digital documents to replace paper, quite

the opposite has occurred. Office paper consumption in North America,

Europe, and the world has increased steadily from 1980 to 1996.29 Even

though the internet and office networks enable workers to electronically

send and store documents, the essential affordances of paper continue to

make it the preferred method of reading, editing, and planning. Internet

use and email actually increase the use of paper as people print the digital

versions to use in their work space.

This is not surprising when one examines the type of work that is

done in an office environment. Paper proves to be the best media for

reflective review and editing because the distinction between the original

idea and a hand-written annotation remains clear. Paper is the preferred

support for authoring for many people. Collaborative projects that require

planning and interactions between people are best supported by paper –

whether it is a legal pad or a large sheet on a wall. Paper also proves

useful as a vehicle for interpersonal communications in offices – it is not

unusual for one to “hand-deliver” a document to emphasize its timely

delivery, as well as providing additional opportunity for personal contact.

These paper benefits tend to relate to active behavior that signifies a level

29 Ibid., 12.

44

of work that is in progress, changing form, and requiring the interactions

of many people.

There are limitations to paper as well. The costs associated with

paper-based information can be quite high. Besides the initial printing

costs, there are delivery, storage, retrieval, and revision costs. For

example, it is estimated to cost about $50,000 in filing cabinets to store 2

million documents, not including the cost of the office square footage

needed. In contrast, fewer than ten CDs can store the same information.30

Revision costs can be significant also. It is not unusual for large amounts

of printed material (such as forms and manuals) to be thrown out as it

becomes obsolete. Here, the costs of printing, delivery, and storage have

already been incurred. This is an interesting counter-point to the notion

that only digital data is vulnerable to obsolescence because of updated

computer soft and hardware. Obsolescence has always been an issue in

information management, and there will always be the need to address

new kinds a obsolescence as information technology continues to evolve.

Finally, the physicality of paper creates limitations relating to its

distribution and form. Paper documents are limited in their use to physical

space; they have weight (in large amounts) that prevent easy distribution

outside of a defined office space. The use of paper for collaborative

30 Ibid., 28.

45

projects is limited to people within sight or delivery of the information.

Lastly, paper is a relatively static media that resists reformatting and

attachments of images or supplementary information.

Affordances of Digital Documents

In order to examine a similar analysis of digital affordances, it will

first be helpful to look closely at hypertext and hypermedia, key elements

in any discussion of digital information. The term, hypertext, was

originated by Theodor H. Nelson in the 1960s describing a new form of

textuality as

...non-sequential writing – text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways.31

Hypermedia extends the same concept to include visual information,

sound, animation, non-textual data. Hypertext changes many of the

fundamental ways text has been written and consumed since the advent of

the printing press. The essential quality of hypertext is its dynamism – it is

endlessly changeable both in its form and its linkages. The simplest

hypertext example is the hyperlink, found in any website, that will

automatically take the reader to a new site simply by clicking the cursor

31 George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0, 3.

46

on it. This linkage now gives the user new controls over what direction to

travel when navigating information, instead of the author having control in

traditionally-printed media. With linking, hypertext decentralizes data,

making the center a fluid point of reference dependent on the user.

Hypertext can be edited in the same way as any text in a word processing

program. As with linking, the user now enjoys new capabilities to edit or

annotate text that book readers never had. Finally, hypertext used on a

network can create new ways to send and receive information virtually

instantaneously from any part of the world.

The relevance of hypertext and hypermedia to exhibition

documenting becomes clear as one imagines new ways that exhibit

resources can be used, distributed, and repurposed. Here, the affordances

of digital data play an important role. Digital data is by nature

imperceptible. It exists as a combination of “on” or “off” states of

individual information units.32 Therefore, one of the primary affordances

of digital data is that of storage – immense quantities of information can

be stored on disks and fileservers compared to paper storage systems.

Since the data is electronically based, it can be easily sent and distributed

within electronic networks. All kinds of digital information, such as text,

images, sounds, or databases, can be equally accessed and edited as long

32 www.yourdictionary.com.

47

as the user has the appropriate computer and software to do so. As

computer processing speeds increase, so do their searching and modifying

abilities of digital information. This makes management of great quantities

of data possible.

As with paper, digital documents have limitations. Their usability

depends on extensive computer, software, and networking systems, which

in turn need to be maintained and periodically upgraded by Information

Technology (IT) staff. Digital data is often cumbersome to use in a

collaborative or multi-tasking environment – picture the awkwardness of

many people looking at a single computer screen, or the almost

impossibility of simultaneously writing and reading several sources while

typing on the keyboard. There are data preservation issues as well. Paper

that is acid-neutral can easily survive for centuries if properly stored,

leaving the information on it intact. Digital media, on the other hand, is

vulnerable to material degradation (plastic films and magnetic fields) and

obsolete software to interpret the data.

Therefore, the best approach to document exhibition resources is to

find ways in which the affordances and limitations of paper-based and

digital information can work together, with the strengths of each

compensating for the weaknesses. When such a balance is found, the

information management system will have significantly greater

48

capabilities than either form could offer by itself. An example of how such

a system could be developed would begin by defining the goals of

documenting the exhibition elements and then matching the best form of

data capture for that purpose. For instance, storing multimedia data for

repurposing in other projects would best be served by digital storage,

perhaps left on a fileserver to ensure its viability and immediate access.

Text panels and final research used in the exhibition could be burned onto

CDs and placed in the exhibit archives, as it will possibly be needed later,

though not frequently. Condition reports and lists of artifacts displayed in

the exhibition might best be left in paper form so that the Registrar can

easily return to them for review and updating.

Document Management Systems

A brief discussion of Document Management Systems (DMSs) will

give shape to how digital data discussed thus far can be stored, managed,

and accessed. DMSs generally means a digital system (requiring computer

software and hardware) that will allow people to store, search, access,

manage, and share documents in digital form, whether or not they

originated on paper (and were scanned) or with a computer program.33

DMSs are designed to allow all connected users access to all (or selected)

33 Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office, 163.

49

information. The intent is to benefit the institution by transforming paper

documents created by individuals into digital documents that can be

accessed by everyone in the organization. Some DMSs will have familiar

names, such as Lotus Notes and Xerox’s Documentum. More often in

large organizations, the DMS will be custom designed for its special

needs.

There are two basic types of DMS. Archiving systems are designed

for inputting and preserving digital information, with emphasis on

indexing and categorizing capabilities. Search functions will also be a

critical feature of this system. Information management systems are

designed to handle work flow between individuals and departments, with

automatic routing capabilities. These systems may also allow document

annotation, editing, and review as users keep work in progress. DMSs can

be server-based, keeping all information within the local network, or web-

based, using the internet as a conduit to an off-site server. This type is

useful for connecting departments or offices in different locations.34

Not surprisingly, the affordances of a DMS are similar to other

digital affordances. According to Sellen and Harper’s research, those

documents (and work processes) that require reviewing, editing, and

collaboration are best kept in a paper-based mode. The authors call this

34 Ibid., 164.

50

type of document “hot” (work currently in progress) and “warm” (work

just finished, or about to begin), and they designate “cold” documents

(completed work kept only for record keeping) as being appropriate for

digital-based storage – on disks or fileserver.

The affordances of a DMS can be summarized as follows: storing

large amounts of data in a small place (fileserver); widespread access to

information by users (with network privileges); fast and exhaustive

searching for information; different options for viewing and sorting

information; hyperlinks to related resources; and dynamic updating or

modifying of content.35

The Role of Special Exhibitions in Museums

The special exhibitions that are relevant to this project are those that

are purposely created to offer new ideas or relationships to their audiences,

and whose exhibit resources might be repurposed to benefit the museum.

As early as 1915, John Cotton Dana, Director of the Newark Museum

(New Jersey), wrote that museum exhibitions should reflect the

community’s assets (such as industries or crafts) and be made accessible

35 Ibid., 173.

51

to that community as traveling exhibits and specially focused exhibitions

that would appeal to women, children, and businessmen.36

An example of this philosophy is found in his New Jersey Clay

Products Industrial Exhibition37 at the Newark Museum, circa 1915.

Pottery and brick products were significant industries in Newark at the

time, and Dana invited all makers of decorative pottery, sanitary ware, fine

china, brick, and terracotta to exhibit their wares to the city. This clearly

commercial approach served as a stage for exhibiting historical pottery

made locally, describing the industrial processes of producing pottery,

displaying clays identified in the New Jersey Geological Survey reports,

and showcasing experimental work with ceramics by students at Rutgers

College. There was also an exhibit of clays used in the filtration of oil; a

resource section featuring books about clays and ceramics; and

demonstrations by a working potter every afternoon explaining his

methods to his audience while he worked.

In other words, Dana created a community-relevant exhibition

through collaboration with businesses and schools that covered industry,

history, geology, science, and demonstrations for visitors. More

importantly here, the exhibition content and interrelationships between the 36 John Cotton Dana, “The New Museum,” in The New Museum: Selected Writings by John Cotton Dana, ed. William A. Peniston (Washington D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1999), 24. 37 Ibid, “An Industrial Exhibit in a Municipal Museum,” Ibid, 153.

52

history, geology, and manufacturing in and around Newark represented

new intellectual resources that had present value for the museum, as well

as significant historic context today worthy of preserving.

There was renewed interest and focus in the 1960s for museums to

acknowledge and participate in the cultural changes of the post-WWII era.

The force of change came from forward-thinking museum curators and

directors, and agendas set forth by professional organizations like

American Association of Museums (AAM) and American Association for

State and Local History (AASLH). Museums and their exhibitions began

to take an active role in grappling with these issues by redefining

themselves as instruments of social change. S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary of

the Smithsonian Institution spoke at a conference in 1966 about new ways

that the Smithsonian might “establish and operate an experimental

Neighborhood Museum in ... a low-income neighborhood in Washington,

D.C.”.38

That museum opened in a converted cinema as the Anacostia

Neighborhood Museum in 1967, named after the largely African-

American community of 100,000 residents. One of the early exhibitions

dealt with an ecological problem in an urban setting titled, The Rat: Man’s

38 John R. Kinard, “The Neighbourhood Museum as a Catalyst for Social Change,” Museum 37 no. 4 (1985): 217.

53

Invited Affliction.39 This was an exhibition that was relevant to the

community and provided important contextual information about the

biology of rats, control strategies, medical guidelines, and social

implications that were necessary to understand the problem on an

environmental level.

(The Neighbourhood Museum as a Catalyst for Social Change, Museum 37 No. 4 1985)

The Rat: Man’s Invited Affliction reinforced the function of special

exhibitions as forums in which timely issues affecting a specific

community could be presented in a way to benefit that community. The

above image is the only known surviving picture of this iconic exhibition,

39 Ibid., 220.

54

providing another example of the vulnerability of historic record without

thorough documentation.

New trends in historiography also influenced the changing role of

special exhibitions. On the west coast, L. Thomas Frye, Curator of History

at what is now known as the Oakland Museum of California, championed

the novel idea of “contemporary collecting” in a 1974 article in AAM’s

Museum News.40 Observing that the mobility of Americans was

diminishing their ties to families and communities, and that the current

young generation was in the midst of a cultural identity that emphasized

“...what’s happening right now as opposed to what happened only

yesterday”,41 Frye saw a new purpose for museums that could offer people

“benchmarks or reference points”42 through relevant and interpretive

exhibitions in their increasingly fast-paced lives . The act of collecting and

exhibiting cultural collateral such as consumer products, political

ephemera, and current music LPs signaled a radical departure from

conventional museum practices, and provided material for innovative

special exhibitions.

The AASLH took these new interpretive issues head on in their

1988 Conference titled Collecting the 20th Century. Richard Rabinowitz of

40 L. Thomas Frye, “The Recent Past is Prologue,” Museum News (November 1974): 24. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid.

55

the American History Workshop in Boston described how twentieth

century culture was creating fundamental changes that affected how

people learned and how programs (and exhibits) needed to change their

interpretive methods to be effective and relevant to contemporary

audiences.43 He specifically characterized learning as an interactive

process where the person constructs their personal meaning. Cultural

factors that were propelling this change included the compression of

formal distance between people (via communications and media), the

abstraction of knowledge, the legitimizing of personal fantasy (via

entertainment), and the democratization of celebrities and valuable

objects. To acknowledge these changes, he continued, interpretive

programming should utilize experiential modes; include narratives and

anecdotes for annotative purposes; and allow simultaneity of perception

rather that linear and rational modes of presentation.

The connection between museums and these cultural changes was

codified through AAM’s 1992 report, Excellence and Equity. By defining

one of the primary roles of museums to be that of education in a pluralistic

society, the report placed relevant programs and exhibitions prominently

as the best means to do so. The report emphasized the role of exhibitions

to be a testing ground to “...study and test the implications of 43 Betty Doak Elder, “Collecting the 20th Century: AASLH Pre-Annual Meeting Conference.” History News (1988): 9-12.

56

communications technologies, ideas from the field of educational

psychology, and the latest exhibit design principles.”44 Such a mandate

illustrates the activist role special exhibitions have been given in the last

century.

Another prominent role for special exhibitions that developed in the

last fifty years has been their ability to serve as generators for increased

revenue and expanded audiences, seen most dramatically with the advent

of the blockbuster exhibition. Extremely popular exhibitions are not new –

the 1934 Machine Art exhibition at New York’s MOMA, curated by noted

architect and designer Philip Johnson, was a spectacular success. Art

critics and the public enjoyed this playful and elegant showcase of

American industrial arts.45 These popular exhibitions were limited,

however, to the resources of the museums and the support of private

philanthropy. A fundamental shift in funding support through the 1960s

and beyond expanded the possibilities of creating more exhibitions with

popular appeal than ever before. Blockbuster exhibitions differed from

previous popular shows in their ability to increase revenues for the

museum. The growing economic importance of exhibitions are borne out

by statistics gathered by researcher Victoria Alexander on the impact of

44 Ibid., 17. 45 Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 152,

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changes in sponsorship of museum exhibitions from 1960 to 1986.46 Her

sample of the 30 largest (by budget) art museums in the U.S. showed a

dramatic increase in exhibition activity during the study period. The

average number of exhibitions per museum each year nearly doubled in

number in 1986.47 Further, her study correlates this increase in exhibitions

with increases in exhibition funding from corporations, foundations, and

government entities such as the National Endowment for the Arts.48

Dissolving Boundaries: Virtual Exhibitions

One last mention needs to be made of the internet’s influence in

developing new forms and means to deliver exhibition resources to

audiences. In the same way that Hypermedia dissolves traditional

boundaries between the creator, the consumer, and the information itself,

the internet blurs the line between physical exhibitions in the museum and

virtual exhibitions in information space.

One of the first exhibitions to be put online was In a Different Light,

consisting of a physical exhibit at the University Art Museum & Pacific

Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley in 1994,49 which is

46 Victoria D. Alexander, Museums & Money: The Impact of Funding on Exhibitions, Scholarship, and Management (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). 47 Ibid., 47. 48 Ibid., 48. 49 The exhibition was open January 11 to April 9, 1994.

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still mostly accessible today.50 The virtual exhibition presents visual

thumbnails of selected art works in the show, a curatorial statement, text

of an interview with the curators, and the calendar of events (during the

run of the physical exhibition). A significant feature of the virtual form of

this exhibit is the hyperlinks within each exhibit section that will take the

viewer to websites related to that section. For instance, the “Self” section

offers a link to Online Personal Ads, the “Couple” section has links to

writings about gay marriage and the proceedings from the 1994 General

Convention of the Episcopal Church examining the need for domestic

partnerships of gay/lesbian couples; and the “World” section has several

international websites such as Amnesty International and the World

Health Organization Global Programme on AIDS. Some of these websites

no longer operate, but it is interesting that 11 years later a few of the

exhibit resources are still accessible. The physical and virtual component

of this exhibition shows how the two modes can supplement each other

and help ensure the viability of its content – as seen in the virtual mode.

Virtual exhibitions without a physical counterpart are seen

increasingly on the internet. The Smithsonian Institution’s History Wired:

A few of our favorite things51 is an experimental website that offers images

and content about selected artifacts from the Smithsonian’s collection. The 50 http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/idl/dlhome.html 51 http://historywired.si.edu/

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intent of the website is to explore ways in which some of the millions of

collection artifacts can be shared with audiences. In this case, it is

irrelevant if website visitors are far from Washington D.C. or not, as most

of the artifacts are not publicly displayed. Hence, this virtual exhibition is

a new form of exhibiting that is directed towards internet users, regardless

of their proximity to the museum. It could also be argued that History can

be seen simply as a collection inventory – albeit an entertaining one – that

may serve to promote the museum’s collection more effectively. Even so,

the affordances of hypertext on the internet make it possible to add links

from each object to other relevant sites or information, potentially

enriching the contextual experience for the user.

A more sophisticated virtual exhibition can be seen in Voices of the

Colorado Plateau (developed in 2002 and still active), a collaborative

effort by eight university libraries and museums in Nevada, Utah,

Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, with funding provided by the

Institute of Museum and Library Services.52

52 http://archive.li.suu.edu/voiceshttp://archive.li.suu.edu/voices. Partners, credits, and contact information are available on the website.

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Home page of Voices of the Colorado Plateau

This multimedia exhibition features oral interviews and historic

images documenting life on the Colorado Plateau. It offers three

categories of information for the visitor – People, Places, and Topics – in

an elegantly simple user interface requiring a minimum of navigation.

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Paul Begay page in People from Voices of the Colorado Plateau

In describing the impetus for the exhibition, Project Director

Matthew Nickerson saw Voices as the next step in virtual exhibits going

beyond a collection of digital artifacts.53 He puts new emphasis on

museum exhibits being in the business of disseminating ideas rather than

artifacts. Storytelling can place artifacts in a narrative context within a

greater perspective, and Nickerson proposed that online exhibitions using

innovative technologies can be an effective vehicle for this information

and experience. Since there are no geographical constraints in this exhibit

model, new collaborations between institutions are possible as well. He

53 Matthew Nickerson, Voices: Bringing Multimedia Museum Exhibits to the World Wide Web, First Monday: Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet, www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_5nickerson/ (22 May 2005).

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cited researchers at the University of Michigan noting new possibilities for

integrating exhibit resources through digital means:

Since the Web is based on distributed input in digital form, it permits both production and consumption of information; it makes possible a model for organizing and sharing images, sound files, and other materials form a number of sources.54

Voices utilizes oral history sound recordings and historical images

from all participating institutions spread over 83,000 square miles. Such a

collaboration would not have been possible prior to digital technology and

the internet. More importantly here, however, is how the intellectual

resources from the libraries and museums were repurposed from their

source (taped interviews and photographic images) into a new form of

exhibiting. It is this sort of metamorphosis and innovation that becomes

possible when exhibition resources are documented in an accessible

manner.

These illustrations of virtual exhibitions are only a few examples of

the emerging forms of exhibiting made possible through digital

communication and information management. The subject of web-based

exhibitions is a study in itself that will continue to evolve. The focus here

is on the value and uses of special exhibition resources. Whether these

54 Ibid., as cited from Holland and Smith, 1999.

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resources/capital are manifested physically or digitally, they continue to

play a significant role for museums.

Documenting the Exhibition – Past and Present

Museums have traditionally documented their exhibitions through a

combination of three means: archiving information that represents the

business of the exhibition (e.g., artifact lists, correspondence, condition

reports, loan documentation); creating an exhibition catalog that typically

includes curator and artist statements, photographs, and credits or

acknowledgements; and relying on departmental files or individual

memories of long-term staff members. The latter, in particular, comprise a

major portion of the “institutional memory” of many museums. Since each

museum is unique in regards to its collection and mission, there has not

been a standard practice for documenting exhibitions that fits all

museums, compared to information management practices found in

libraries or businesses, for example.

According to L. Thomas Frye, in the past most large museums relied

on the knowledge of the exhibition curator themselves.55 This form of

institutional memory sufficed when curators would typically remain at the

museum for 20 or 30 years or more. They had extensive knowledge of the

55 L. Thomas Frye, interview by author, telephone, Oakland, Ca., 12 Jan 2005.

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creation and production of the exhibition, as well as contextual

information about the artists or subject, research, and audience experience.

Museum personnel today, however, are more transitory, as is the

workforce in general. It is not unusual for curators and designers to remain

in place only a few years before moving on. Generally the specialized

knowledge these key people have is not well documented, or is lost

entirely when they leave.

Staniszewski adds another dimension to the problem from her

research experiences at MoMA and the Guggenheim Art Museum.56 She

described the frustration of having only black and white images to view

when she knew that so many installations utilized vibrant colors drawn

from fashion or the designer’s palette (such as chartreuse, pink, gold, and

silver). This film choice was at first due to the expense and unavailability

of color film, but in some cases the documentary tradition of using black

and white film persisted even when color film was easily available.

Another limitation existed when only one image remained of a major

exhibition, and that image became the memory of the exhibition regardless

of what else was there (as described earlier in The Family of Man

exhibition.).

56 Mary Anne Staniszewski, interview by author, telephone, 29 March 2005.

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The concept of museums documenting their exhibitions beyond

business-oriented archives can be traced back to new museological trends

such as contemporary collecting. By assuming that the present culture is

worthy of preserving and exhibiting, museum exhibitions themselves

could then be considered an expression of that culture and worthwhile to

document. Thomas J. Schlereth, Historian at the University of Notre

Dame, Indiana, went a step further in 1984 by articulating the importance

of museums collecting themselves in the manner that they collect culture,

by documenting the institution’s records, files, and

...especially ...museum exhibits, special events, and participatory programs. More often than not, a major exhibition is torn down before anyone thinks ‘to collect’ it as an important artifact of its time and place. I find it ironic that we who lavish such care upon the creations of others treat our own creations with almost total indifference.57

There has been no notable progress in the museum profession

towards exhibit documentation since Frye’s and Schlereth’s work two

decades ago. The documentation generated by most exhibitions is most

often left in the realm of the registrar or collections management staff, as

they are involved in the loaning and shipping processes, and general

collection care and documentation. Scant literature specifically addresses

this issue. Barry and Gail Dexter Lord’s comprehensive book, The Manual 57 Thomas J. Schlereth, “Contemporary Collecting for Future Recollecting,” Museum Studies Journal (Spring 1984): 23-30.

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of Museum Exhibitions, makes only brief mentions of documenting

procedures. They identify the registrar as the key staff person that

generally is responsible for managing the documentation in North

American museums, and they allude to the demanding effort it takes to

create, install, and document a temporary exhibition, often requiring the

entire museum staff, volunteers, guest curators, and security guards to pull

it all off.58 The lack of detailed procedures reflects the ambiguity within

the museum profession of which staff position would be responsible for

exhibit documenting.

A similar approach to exhibit documentation is found in The New

Museum Registration Methods published by the AAM. Comprehensive

lists of information and types of documentation are suggested for use

during the process of managing the information flow of a complex

exhibition. There is discussion about how the various staff positions and

departments might work together in the budget planning and installation of

the exhibition, as well as useful checklists that address artifact condition,

care, location, installation requirements, technological issues, and

signage.59 All of this information relates to planning and procedures for

58 Barry Lord, “Planning and Managing Temporary Exhibitions,” The Manual of Museum Exhibitions ed. Barry Lord and Gail Dexter Lord (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2002): 276. 59 Rebecca A. Buck and Jean Allman Gilmore, eds., The New Museum Registration Methods (Washington D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1998), 189-191.

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producing an exhibition, but does not address documenting needs after it

closes.

One of the most useful current sources of information comes from

the Society of American Archivists’ recent 2nd edition of Museum

Archives: An Introduction.60 This compilation presents the theories and

practices of the archivist’s profession as it may be related to museum

functions. It offers the broadest perspective of how varied exhibit

documents are generated and managed among all of the departments in a

museum. It was also the only source I have found that mentions the

importance of preserving “label and didactic texts; interpretive materials

such as videos, slide shows and audio tours; installation design records;

and reviews and press coverage,” and interactive computer programs.61

Museum Archives also has excellent discussions about preservation

issues of digital media and managing a combination of paper-based and

digital information – a mixture particularly relevant to exhibit

documenting.62 Many of the same considerations about media affordances

that were discussed above are reiterated here: keeping in mind the

perspective of the information user, examining the access and retrieval

60 Deborah Wythe, ed. Museum Archives: An Introduction, 2nd edition. (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2004). 61 Ibid., 14. 62 Ibid., 160-168.

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needs, and defining the most appropriate storage methods for the type and

function of the information to be stored.

New Complexities, New Solutions

Museum exhibitions have always been more than the sum of their

parts (or artifacts). Even simple exhibitions without interactivity or

multimedia components might be compared to store displays (at a

minimum) or to theatrical productions (at the most complex). With this

comparison in mind, it is understandable that lists of displayed artifacts,

installation photos, attendance figures, and catalogs are inadequate for

documenting the totality and experience of the exhibition. What gives the

issue of documentation greater import in the last few decades has been the

increased complexity of exhibits as a result of new multimedia

technologies and interpretive modes used by curators, educators, and

designers.

The explosion of new media possibilities experienced by American

culture in the 1960s made its way into the staid art gallery world in 1969

with Harlem on My Mind, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Thomas Hoving, the Met’s dynamic Director, felt that museums needed to

try to understand the roots of the current social unrest and to create

exhibitions that would be relevant to local communities – in this case,

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Harlem. Three months before the exhibition opened, Hoving wrote an

article in Museum News that forcefully laid out new directions of the

Met.63 He promised to “loosen the rigid structure of our exhibitions ...so

that our own objects are exhibited with verve and freshness.” The Harlem

exhibition would be

a multi-media show using all of the special techniques of this type of exhibition...there’s going to be a closed circuit television set-up: one end in our gallery, the other at 125th Street and 7th Avenue, so that one will be able to have actual communication, conversation and confrontation – which I think is crucially necessary – with the people who live in that area of New York City.64

All of these goals were met – including the confrontation. For a

number of reasons, both traditional museum goers and Harlem residents

felt insulted by the ambitious show. However, the fact that Hoving

embraced new communication technologies of the day to break exhibit

conventions unchanged in a century set into motion a new innovative

spirit in exhibit designers that continues. The show’s curator, Allon

Schoener, had previous experience in television production, and

envisioned the exhibition as a “total cultural environment.”65 He designed

a 60-year panorama of Harlem history divided into six sections; over 700

photographs were displayed, some of which were enlarged to life-size;

63 Thomas P. F. Hoving, “Branch Out!” Museum News (Sept. 1968): 15-20. 64 Ibid., 18. 65 Steven C. Dubin, “With the Best of Intentions: The Proto-Culture Wars Over the Metropolitan’s 1969 ‘Harlem On My Mind’ Exhibition,” New Art Examiner (Nov. 1997): 39-46.

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audio speakers played music and voices of Harlem residents; and slide

projectors flashed 500 images at a quick pace.66 Schoener described the

show as a 60-minute “barrage of images, text, and sound,” intended to

immerse and engulf the visitor.67

In some ways, Harlem On My Mind can be seen as a natural

progression from Edward Steichen’s 1955 The Family of Man exhibition,

also purposefully designed as an immersive experience. The use of so

many different communication and theatrical modes in Harlem, however,

define it as a marker for technologically complex exhibitions. The

problem of documenting the experience created by television cameras,

slide projectors, life-size images, and music is similar to our problem

today of capturing an exhibit experience produced by video images,

interactive exhibit elements, and internet-based exhibit modules.

Besides the changes brought about by media technologies, a major

shift in interpretive paradigms has been growing for the last 20 years. The

new didactic orientation, commonly described as meaning making,

challenges previous understandings of how and what people learn in a

museum environment. One of the leading proponents of the theory, Lois

Silverman, described the shortcomings of the learning model, termed the

66 Ibid. 67 Kimmelman, “Art View: Culture and Race: Still on America’s Mind,” The New York Times.

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information perspective, that dominated the field since the post-war era.

This perspective presumes the learner to be a passive recipient of the

information that is directed to them through means of exhibit staging and

text labels. But, Silverman explains,

...communication theorists could not ignore a major flaw in the fundamental assumption of the information paradigm. What ends up in people’s heads is very often not identical to the sender’s intention nor the message content.68

The meaning making model posits that audiences will consciously

make use of media to their own ends, and interpret information in a

subjective manner that is influenced by their culture and personal

experiences.69 The visitor’s experience and “take-away” from a museum

will result from the complex interaction between themselves, the exhibit

design and message, and the museum environment – all of which will

differ from other visitor’s experience of the same exhibition.

This communication dynamic has multiple implications for

exhibition design, and consequently, its documentation. Silverman made

several design recommendations that accommodate meaning making for

visitors that include thinking broadly of creative solutions for presentation

allowing for different cultural perspectives; support multiple meanings and

modes of expression such as alternative viewpoints, visitor feedback, and 68 Lois H. Silverman, “Meaning Making Matters: Communication, Consequences, and Exhibit Design,” Exhibitionist, 18 no. 2 (Fall 1999) 10. 69 Ibid., 9-10.

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multimedia techniques; explore new avenues of display using new

technology – “take informed risks”; and evaluate one’s own efforts and

share them with other staff and museums.70

This interpretive approach requires multiple layers of exhibit

content, delivery, and documentation (for evaluations). No longer is it

sufficient to simply write exhibit labels and text plates in English. Instead,

there may be several languages of text, multiple ways of presenting the

same information (text, video, printed material), and different cultural

perspectives of the same issue, to name a few. All of these layers of

information will need to be documented in some form to capture the full

substance of the exhibition.

Many authors have characterized American culture at this century

juncture as one of an experience economy.71 Museums, theme parks, and

cultural events, are blending in function and audiences. The trade

organization, International Association of Amusement Parks and

Attractions (IAAPA) regularly includes museum issues in their annual

trade shows in Orlando and their magazine, Attractions Management. The

IAAPA show in 2003 hosted a seminar titled, “Museums: Competition

and Renewal,” (a title that would be at home in any AAM or AASLA

convention), that featured speakers such as the president of the Henry Ford 70 Ibid., 13. 71 Ibid., 12.

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Museum and the COO of Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts at

Kennedy Space Center in Florida.72 Their common seminar topic was how

to make the shift from a traditional museum to a destination attraction,

reaching greater audiences and increasing revenues. This economic

perspective, based on the production and consumption of experiences,

shows how significant the experience of museum exhibitions can be.

While experience is not easy to document (or at least not simple to

document), it represents a tangible and purposeful resource created by

exhibit designers, curators, and educators.

Museum exhibitions now utilize, to a varying degree, topics relevant

to diverse communities, evolving technologies, multiple interpretive

modes, and designed experiences for their visitors. All of these elements

are worth capturing to some degree for repurposing and to preserve the

exhibition’s historical context. The same information technologies that

have added layers of complexity to exhibitions can offer new solutions for

managing these information resources. Combining the best affordances of

paper-based and digital formats is the key to advancing documentation

techniques. Historically significant exhibitions have suffered the loss of

some or all of their aesthetic and intellectual resources due to inadequate

documentation. Today’s special exhibitions represent an important record

72 Jeff Rosen, “Rewriting History,” Attractions Management, 9 no.1.04 (2004) 48.

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of current knowledge and social context that museums should endeavor to

preserve for present and future generations.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

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In the early stages of research for this project I was surprised at the

dearth of writings on the subject of documenting exhibitions. Thus, one of

the purposes for this project became clear: find out what other museum

professionals think about exhibit documentation, learn which staff

members generally do it and how they do it, and understand their criteria

of what and how much to save. This was relatively easy to glean from the

surveys, but as my interviews with museum professionals progressed, I

found it was increasingly difficult to isolate the documentation issue from

the wider technological revolution occurring in the museum world (as well

as in business and all other areas of information management).

Until the widespread adoption of digital technology, the conventions

of information management and communication modes within institutions

had not changed appreciably in the last century. Today, we find ourselves

in a world where the technical ability to record data is evolving at a

dizzying pace, and the data itself is morphing73 into new forms and

functions every day. As a result, information managers – whether they be

registrars, computer specialists, or directors – are under increasing

pressure to stay current with information technology and manage the

73 The verb “to morph” as used here is a good example of how our language is adapting to the new technological universe. Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines it as “to change one image into another, or combine them, using a computer program.” See http://dictionary.cambridge.org/.

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growing volume of data produced by the users of the same digital

technology.

In this section, I will start with a discussion of the survey responses I

received from museums to illustrate the current thinking and common

practices of exhibit documentation. Following the survey discussion, I

examine these issues in greater depth from case-specific insights culled

from the interviews I conducted with museum and related professionals.

The interview discussions are springboards for exploring the larger issues

of evolving technology, media preservation, and internet and digital

potentials as they relate to museum exhibitions.

Surveys

In order to acquire the widest range of responses about all aspects of

exhibition documentation, I mailed 102 surveys in March 2005 to art and

history museums in the United States. The survey letter was addressed to

the “Registrar / Exhibit Records Manager” at museums with at least 50

full-time staff (exceptions were made for states with only smaller

museums). (See Appendices 1 and 2 for the cover letter, survey

instrument, and survey results.) I received 57 completed responses (56%)

between March and May 2005. Most respondents were Registrars, Project

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Managers, and Exhibition Coordinators, but there were also surveys filled

out by Deputy Directors, Archivists, and Curators.

The survey was structured by questions that essentially asked what

did museums save from their exhibitions, how did they do this, who did

the documenting, and why did they do it? Interspersed in these primary

questions were opportunities for respondents to explain why they did not

document their exhibitions (if that was the case), and what, specifically,

did they wish was saved but had not been. The last four questions were

open-ended so that respondents could describe what benefits they have

realized, what problems they experienced with documenting, what

successes they would like to share, and any further comments about

documenting their exhibitions. These questions, numbers 6 through 9, will

be addressed separately because their open-ended nature elicited responses

that intertwine with all of the earlier questions, adding more nuanced

responses.

What was Documented?

The survey began with a comprehensive list of exhibit elements that

might be saved – whether in physical or digital form – such as text panels,

images, floor plans, evaluations, research. There was the option of filling

in additional elements not on the list. All respondents checked most of

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these elements. To make sense of this broad response, I divided all the

choices into three categories of content (text panels and labels, images,

records, research), design (floor plans, exhibit photos, design materials

and graphics), and experience (interactive elements, visitor experience,

audio/visual, and evaluations and press reports). Even then, the surveys

showed a fairly even response in all three categories (80% chose both

content and design, and 70% chose experiential elements). For the few

respondents that did not document their exhibitions, the most common

reason was the lack of time for staff to do so (four respondents).

The even, across the board responses to this question suggest that

those responsible for documentation are fully aware of the importance of

all of the elements listed, from text labels to visitor experience.

Subsequent question responses, however, gave evidence that in the daily

routine of work, many of these elements were not documented, for a

variety of reasons.

Looking at past exhibitions, the respondents were asked if they

wished there had been exhibit elements saved that were not. Nearly half

answered “yes” and another third answered, “I don’t know,” implying that

the respondent had not been in his or her position long enough to be sure.

One could make a further assumption that if they had been there longer, at

least some of their answers would be “Yes.” These assumptions begin to

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paint a picture of a majority of museums lacking significant

documentation of their past exhibitions.

When asked to specifically describe what they would have wanted

to be saved, responses were almost equally divided between the categories

of content/research elements and design/graphics elements. This echoes

the even responses from Question 1 about which elements are saved.

Many responses mentioned that prior to computers, their

documentation was more sporadic or missing altogether. Here we begin to

see how computers and digital storage media dramatically changed both

the capabilities and responsibilities of documentation. Two responses

typify this:

At one time the various exhibition materials were kept by different departments and not cataloged properly; most (now) can be saved digitally on the museum’s database.

Before computers were used to do research, produce labels,

floor plans, graphics, databases, etc., there is little documentation. After the advent of computers for these tasks documentation is better.

How was it Documented?

Realizing that most museums used a combination of analog and

digital means for archiving, I designed the “how” question to give a sense

of where museums stood within a continuum of methods in which to save

elements. The survey offered four ranked options, beginning with a purely

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analog orientation (keeping physical elements such as photos, text plates,

fabricated elements). Following this was an option with saving audio and

video tapes. The third option was saving digital copies of text, and the last

option was all digital elements (such as images, sounds, movies).

Not all respondents gave ranked answers to this question, so the

results are not definitive. However, of the total responses, most museums

saved digital documents as a primary means, followed by saving physical

elements. A smaller group saved all digital files (images and movies), and

the fewest respondents saved the analog tapes and videos. This suggests

that while museums are still keeping their physical elements, they have

almost universally adopted digital text files as a means to preserve data.

Digital image/sound files represent the most current and evolving

technological formats, and as could be expected, museums are slowly and

unevenly adopting these.

Who Documented it?

The survey laid out a wide menu of staff positions to choose from

that might be responsible for documenting exhibitions. This was meant to

illustrate to what degree the documentation process is focused or

fragmented within the institution. I listed eight general position titles (e.g.,

Registrar, Curator, Volunteers, Education Staff) and gave the option to fill

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in additional titles. My respondents added 12 more positions in the “other”

category: Public Relations, Marketing, Photography Dept., Library,

Museum Archivist, Admissions, Conservators, Project Manager, Exhibit

Designer, Graphics Dept., AV Dept., and IT Dept.

To establish a measuring point, I counted those institutions which

used three or more different positions to document their exhibitions. These

were the museums, I hypothesized, that might experience organizational

obstacles to effective documentation. From this count, I determined that

almost two-thirds of the museums were exposed to this potentially

fragmentary or redundant situation. This conclusion bears itself out in the

findings of Questions 7 and 8.

Why was it Documented?

In order to provide an analysis of why museums currently document

their exhibitions, I offered a variety of options, and requested a ranking of

the top three reasons. The majority of the “most important” reason to

document exhibitions was equally represented as “internal use” and “to

enhance institutional memory,” followed closely by “for future curators &

scholars.” These responses might be characterized as introverted, showing

that most museums have perceived exhibition documentation as a

primarily internal function and asset. The low responses of “promotion

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and marketing purposes” (with no “most important” ranking circled), “for

future exhibit designers,” and “public access and inquiries” – all

externally-oriented – suggest that museums have under-utilized their

exhibition assets for marketing and outreach to audiences once the

exhibition has closed.

Question 6 – Benefits of Documentation

In this question I asked for specific benefits that were gained by

documenting their exhibitions. The most often cited benefit themes were

re-use (of elements or labels), planning tools (for design or budgets),

research (fulfilling both internal and external requests), and record-

keeping (for all types, all departments). Typical comments were:

Occasionally we re-use or re-work specific sections for other purposes, such as traveling exhibits, curriculum materials, publications. This saves both time and money. (Re-use)

This is a constant source of information for budgeting, marketing,

and design. We like to look back at what succeeded and what failed, and why. (Planning)

Subjects of past exhibitions are often the same subjects being

researched by authors, scholars, and filmmakers. An exhibition file with lots of data makes servicing these researchers a very efficient experience. (Research)

Address legal inquiries, historical value for the institution and the

artworks, reference for future exhibitions. (Record-keeping)

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These responses correlate with the internal-orientation of

documentation previously discussed. Much less often cited benefits were

related to promotion/marketing, design, grant applications, and

maintenance. Here we begin to imagine new potential benefits for the

museum if it embraces a more externally-oriented approach to

documentation. These responses offer new possibilities:

Photo documentation ...provides marketing tools. Promotion of museum to potential donors/collaborators We often send packets to potential lenders or sponsors including

past publications to show (the) excellent work at our institution. ...documents impact of exhibit on/within (the) community. Used as supplemental materials for successful grant applications. One last response summarizes the beneficial role of exhibition

documentation as an intersection between the museum staff and its

audiences.

These are the most heavily used archival collections – by scholars, students, curators, designers, registrars, collectors – you could go on for pages about how each benefited.

Question 7 – The Problems of Documenting

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This question gave respondents the chance to describe the problems

and challenges they faced when documenting their exhibits. The most

cited problems were lack of space (39%), followed by organizational

impediments (30%) and insufficient time (28%). “Space” included

physical space for storage of large elements, filing cabinet space, and

digital space on computers and fileservers. Organizational obstacles

covered a range from not having an archivist on staff to department

territoriality. “Time” included the time it takes to photograph an

exhibition, time used for image management, and time between hectic

exhibition schedules. Some interesting responses regarding organizational

structure were

...departments can be territorial with their ‘archived’ materials. ...there is no central place for retrieving past exhibit information.

If someone wanted to go back and know details of an exhibition, s/he would have to go to four different places in which it is archived.

Our archives of printed paper material are off-site and not always

accessible. Staff scheduling. (This responder identified 10 separate people or

departments that were responsible for documenting elements of their exhibitions.)

These responses, coupled with similar discussions in the interview

section, point to one of the fundamental challenges to effective exhibition

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documentation, that of a segmented institutional structure that discourages

efficient, central archiving and access of documented material. Museums,

in effect, are still operating in a 19th century organizational model while

trying to adapt to 21st century technology, experiential modalities, and

global marketing.

Lack of staff was cited by half as many respondents, either as not

having enough staff members, or losing staff due to budget cuts. The

lowest citings were lack of records, technical or equipment difficulties,

and lastly, lack of money. The specific difficulties with computers

involved

Abandoned technologies – e.g., interactive computer-based programs which no longer support an exhibition element.

Digital file formats! (referring to constant upgrading and evolving

formats)

I expected more responses related to computer difficulties, and these few

may reflect the relatively few years that museums have become mostly

digital. It may also suggest that museums have not upgraded software and

hardware as aggressively as businesses in the private sector.

Question 8 – Documenting Successes

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This question gave respondents a chance to describe their successes

with documentation, and provide recommendations to other museums. The

three most common themes revolved around digital conversion,

centralization of the museum’s archives, and photographing the exhibition.

It became clear that the advantages of converting archive functions to

digital formats (text, images, and design) greatly outweighed the problems

encountered with technological difficulties with software and hardware.

These responses illustrate this:

Maintaining digital rather that analog archives has been efficient. Moving from slides of installations to digital photography. We began entering all exhibition items onto a Filmmaker database

and when we upgraded our collection management software in 2003, this database was migrated to integrate with the collection management software. We can research by artist or title for any artwork ever displayed at the Art Center and cross-reference back to the exhibition. This helps tremendously with research.

We are generally very successful at storing the following:

Electronic lists of final label/wall text copy and design & color specs for such; cad cam drawings of final floor plans; electronic lists of objects lists w/ images; final digital shots at completed installations.

All electronic files (scripts, interactives, etc.) are cut to CD. Many of the responses that advocate central archive organization

also recommend digital conversion because the technology makes data

organization easier:

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The internal website where all archived materials are posted makes it easy for all staff to access into when they need it without having to ask someone.

We recently started a new policy where I as Registrar gather all

appropriate material (educational programs, PR releases, etc.) to put in final archived folder – each department is responsible to get material to me at the close of the show. (It) has worked better to have departments accountable to one person.

Keeping binders of everything, sorted by fiscal year, then by

exhibition. allows us to quickly reference contracts, floor plans, gallery photography, etc.

It appeared from the survey that a very simple and effective step

towards documenting exhibitions would be to photograph the completed

exhibition:

At the bare minimum, digital images of the installed show, with samples of all materials used.

Photo documentation is easy & painless. We keep binders with the

hard copies of material & digital files. ...have a photographer there every day, especially through

installation and make sure that condition reporting and difficult installation pieces are photographed.

This rather obvious step is often overlooked because of staff or time

shortages. Some respondents have reported that maintaining camera

equipment is an obstacle to documentation, but the recommendations here

suggest that digital photography can be seen as a partial solution because it

reduces the steps for image capture, and keeps all image records within the

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museum in accessible formats (rather that having to send negatives out for

printing).

A less cited recommendation, but nonetheless significant to this

project, was that of maintaining communication between the various

departments involved throughout the exhibition development and

installation:

Making everyone who has a hand in the exhibition process aware of the importance of documentation is the most successful strategy.

Planning and communication in every step of the process. Always talk with your people that are documenting and make sure

that there is a strategy as to what they are “collecting” and to make sure that after the exhibit closes, they meet and gather all their information on the exhibit and sort the material out to find out what was relevant in order to archive and keep for future references. This should include your Registrar, Photo Archivist, Paper Archivist, Curatorial Liaison, Film/Video Archivist etc.

Museums that have incorporated these kinds of communication

pathways are in an excellent position to adopt additional strategies for

more effective documentation. Those that have not incorporated them

should make this a priority, as any effective solutions for exhibition

documentation will depend on how well the various departments can

cooperate with each other (This will be further discussed in the

Recommendations Section).

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Some practical responses that do not fit neatly in the previous

themes include these ideas about using interns, and post-exhibition

evaluations:

Binders of installation slides organized by year and by show – carefully labeled by interns; having interns spend time “weeding out” files – tossing duplicated info, or info that’s better archived on the computer.

We write a post-mortem report for internal use, documenting what

we think we did right or wrong, trying to be honest in that assessment. Then we write a “public” report for donors/trustees that gives attendance numbers, marketing impressions, etc.

We use the post-mortems to inform future exhibit decisions, especially budget levels. Was this budget level sufficient for this exhibit or not? If not, why, and how to do better next time? This is the real value of exhibit evaluation.

Question 9 – Additional Comments

The final question offered respondents an opportunity to add any

further thoughts or comments about documenting their exhibitions. These

answers are revealing, both regarding problems and solutions:

If it becomes part of the exhibition process, documentation is painless, efficient, and cost-effective.

It ought to be easier and more systematic. A final goal of ours, although not yet realized, is to get better at

doing final evaluations of an exhibition to determine ROI and pinpoint and document what worked and what didn’t.

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Documentation of performance art & site-specific installations is difficult. I would like to see someone do a serious study & make recommendations.

I wish we would! This survey has brought our “negligence” to

light, and I plan to suggest we institute such a mandate. More information is better than less... barring duplications. Lack of space should never be the reason you discard elements

from your archive. Every institution should document their exhibitions in some way.

The visitor experience is difficult to capture much less preserve. I am interested in your research findings.

Taken as a whole, these survey responses give a snapshot of the

current thinking, problems, and solutions that large art and history

museums have encountered in their efforts to document their exhibitions.

All respondents agree that documentation is needed at least for internal

functions. Similarly, all are aware of the different layers of meaningful

information to preserve – from content to design to visitor experience. The

most prominent challenges that are faced are related to space and time

constraints, and by organizational impediments to effectively document

their exhibitions.

The benefits of doing so, however, can give added momentum to

making changes within the museum. Documentation provides a valuable

planning and research tool for future exhibitions, directly translating to

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savings in staff time and expense. Adopting digital technology greatly

enhances and expands the museum’s ability to store and re-use exhibition

information. The communication pathways between departments that are

necessary for effective exhibition documentation will improve the

organization’s efficiency overall. Finally, these responses have hinted at

new potential capabilities for serving audiences and marketing the

museum’s resources.

Interviews

My interviews with museum professionals offered additional

perspectives to the problems of exhibit documenting. After opening

Oakland Museum of California’s exhibition, “What’s Going On? –

California and the Vietnam Era,” in 2004. Diane Curry, Curatorial

Specialist in the History Department, was primarily concerned with how

to handle the mountainous volume of research that went into the

exhibition. The personal stories of the refugees, servicemen, and other

Vietnam-era participants made up a large portion of the research, and only

a fraction was used in the final exhibition. What remained, however, was

legitimate research and content that would be valuable if it could be

preserved and made accessible to curators and scholars. But she had little

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guidance nor time to figure out how to begin saving the data.74 The lack of

physical space exacerbated the situation. Records of past exhibitions were

generally stored off-site, and not easily accessible. This was reiterated by

Joy Tahan, Registrar of Permanent Collections in the Art Department at

OMC. Currently her office and available storage are filled to capacity. The

situation will worsen when an upcoming gallery expansion at OMC takes

over office space.75

This lack of space problem has adverse consequences for the

museum staff long after an exhibition has closed. The OMC installed a

very popular and extensive exhibition in 1998 called, “Gold Fever!”

Curry still receives requests from the public about specific artifacts or

images from the exhibition, but she cannot easily find information about

them. While the Gold Fever! web version is maintained and widely used

by school children, it does not include all of the original elements. Curry

said the paper-based files from that exhibition are still unorganized.

Tahan brought up another common complaint regarding past and

present documentation methods. Records from different departments

involved in producing exhibitions have generally been inconsistent in

content and methods. While this is more understandable with past records,

it continues to be a vexing problem because departments (and individuals) 74 Diane Curry, interview by author, telephone, Oakland, Ca., 7 Dec 2004. 75 Joy Tahan, interview by author, in person, Oakland, Ca., 22 March 2005.

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will typically use different recording methods (paper, audio and video

tape, computer files), computer operating systems (Windows or

Macintosh), and software programs (CAD, Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark,

PageMaker, Word, WordPerfect, Excel, to name a few). Having such a

varied mix of formats increases the likelihood that important data is lost or

at least difficult to retrieve.

L. Thomas Frye, Chief Curator Emeritus at OMC, added new

dimensions to this same problem. He brought up the issue of inconsistency

of exhibition documentation among museums – some museums, like those

in the Smithsonian, will do a thorough job, but many museums do not.

Even within the same organization, over time, efforts to preserve

exhibitions will change. During good economic times there may be

adequate staff and resources for archiving; but during economic

slowdowns, museums often reduce staff and hours, putting exhibition

archiving off because of other more pressing needs.76

Some museums have been able to maintain an internal culture of

self-documenting. The Historic New Orleans Collection is such a

museum. The Director of Museum Programs, John Lawrence, described

how the New Orleans Collection established a foundation of documenting

at the very beginning of its formation in the 1970s. The museum began as

76 L. Thomas Frye, interview by author, telephone, Oakland, Ca., 12 Jan 2005.

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a private collection with a professional curator organizing it. Even though

there is archival material in different formats and locations within the

museum, Lawrence felt the institutional memory was well-served by the

long-term staff and their understanding of the importance of archiving

exhibition elements.77

Based on my survey responses and interviews, however, I think that

this ideal situation is not the case in the majority of museums. Most

institutions have a more checkered history that tends to fragment archiving

practices among the departments. The OMC is a good example of an

institution whose present form was borne from the collections of three

separate museums (art, history, and natural history). Tahan described their

situation, similar to many expressed in the surveys. Separate departments

will archive the records that pertain to their involvement with the

exhibition. She keeps all records concerning the objects displayed ( or

loaned), the artist or loaner, shipping records, condition reports, insurance

records, correspondence, and anything else related to record keeping for

the exhibitions. The exhibition curator will keep research-related

materials. When they leave the museum, curators are supposed to leave

their records at the museum, but in reality, the records are often

unorganized or incomplete. Some design info might be saved, but often

77 John Lawrence, interview by author, telephone, New Orleans, LA, 19 July 2005.

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exhibits are designed as they go up, and there is no comprehensive record

of the result other than the color slides kept in the office. Generally, there

is no attempt to save floor plans or design boards. Audience evaluations

are kept by the Education Department. To make matters more

complicated, the OMC has separate collections, registrars, and curators for

each of the art, history, and natural history departments.

This lack of a central information repository is a very common

theme among museum staff. In a dual interview with Heather Sears and

Allison Cummings on the collections management staff at San Francisco

Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)78, they illustrated the drawbacks of

not having a central archives as they described their daily work that

required them to walk to other departments in the museum, often up and

down several levels, to retrieve information. Sometimes they found it

easier to recreate certain documents rather than take the time to find the

original. The more that documentation is fragmented in this way, the

greater the chance that it will never be assembled into a comprehensive

archive that can represent the exhibition as a whole.

Not all curators will get involved in an exhibition design, but Karen

Tsujimoto, Senor Curator in the Art Department at OMC does take an

active role. Her recent major exhibition, “The Art of David Ireland: The

78 Heather Sears and Allison Cummings, interview by author, SFMOMA 23 May 2005.

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Way Things Are,” was a designed environment showing 80 of Ireland’s

quirky and provocative sculptural works between 1972 and 2002. Ireland

and Tsujimoto designed an active space that included an 18 foot chair, an

installation with an angel revolving in the air above a mass of statuesque

figures, and works that use physical phenomena for visual and dynamic

effects. This exhibition created an experience for the visitor in the gallery,

even if implicitly, by the careful placement of the art and the activity of

the installations. The exhibit documentation, however, followed standard

practices at OMC and consisted of mainly still photographs (color slides)

and documentation of the works by the Registrar. There is no overall

archives staff or department, and according to Tsujimoto, there are no

records of the design or experience created other than those in her office.79

As exhibitions grow in complexity, they also may draw on elements

not normally “exhibited” that add to the visitor’s experience. This is

particularly true in exhibitions that feature artists who stretch the

boundaries of media and techniques. The question of exactly what to save

can become problematic. For instance, Tsujimoto recalled an exhibition at

OMC that included a live, penned chicken in the center of the exhibit

space. Tsujimoto did not recall if this was documented, but in discussing

what should be recorded in such an exhibit, she said the answer would lie

79 Karen Tsujimoto, interview by author, in person, Oakland, Ca., 4 April 2005.

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with the artist’s intentions. Is the important element the visual of a live

chicken? The sound of it clucking and scratching? The smell of a barnyard

animal? The artist’s intent would give the best guidance for documenting,

and perhaps offer solutions such as a video, audio tape, or description of

the smell of the chicken to be included in the documentation.

For a perspective from one who has had extensive experience

researching the exhibition archives of New York’s Museum of Modern

Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum, among

others, I was fortunate to speak at length with Mary Anne Staniszewski,

Associate Professor of Electronic Arts History, Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute. Staniszewski wrote The Power of Display: A History of

Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art as an outgrowth of

her PhD dissertation. I was grateful that I could take advantage of her

findings since my time limitations prevented me from pursuing these

significant institutions.80

These museums presented a different perspective to the problems

discussed so far. Generally speaking, they can afford adequate staff and

resources to provide documentation of their exhibitions, particularly

because so many of their exhibitions feature major artists and are highly

profiled in the museum world. Staniszewski found, however, that it was

80 Mary Anne Staniszewski, interview by author, telephone, Troy NY, 29 March 2005.

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the exception rather than the rule for these museums to maintain well-

organized exhibition archives. More typically, archives would be

inconsistent or missing significant imagery. An example was given earlier

of MoMA maintaining a documenting tradition to use only black and

white photographs of their exhibitions. It was also the convention to

photograph most if not all exhibitions empty of visitors, as if the people

were unwelcome clutter.81 No contextual visual information was recorded

about who visited, what they wore, and how they interacted with the art.

The findings suggest that these large museums had a limited

understanding of the role and value of their exhibitions. They thought of

their exhibitions as ephemeral, existing in a single dimension of time.

Revealingly, Staniszewski mentioned that she did not think there has

been much improvement towards documenting current exhibitions at these

museums. Possibly because of their size (creating inertia against change)

or tradition (using only black and white film), there is little evidence that

the boards and senior staff realize or accept the value of thorough

documentation of their exhibitions. Staniszewski attributes some of this

ignorance to a lack of understanding how new technologies and media can

provide new possibilities for documentation and expanded audiences. She

suggested video taping exhibitions, as just one example. Staniszewski sees 81 Mary Anne Staniszewski, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), xxviii.

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a disconnection between the upper echelons of culture and the exploding

popular uses of digital technology that are creating new ideas and

connections every day.

Here, on a grand scale, is an illustration of a powerful yet subtle

reason that museums do not document their exhibitions better. It is not

always the lack of money or resources, but the lack of creativity and

understanding of the issues and technology involved. This simple reason

can exist among museum staffs in any size institution – large or small.

The findings from interviews of museum professionals give a more

definitive perspective of the needs and challenges already described in the

surveys. The surveys demonstrated that these problems are widely

experienced in museums across the country, and the interviews share

glimpses of solutions for them. The adoption of digital technology is the

key to managing space constraints and allowing different kinds of

information to be utilized. There are challenges inherent with the

technology that must be grappled with regarding training and upgrades,

but museum staff have proven that it is possible, and the benefits far

outweigh the drawbacks.

There is a particular obstacle, however, in moving forward with

integrating new technological solutions for many museums. Sam Quigley,

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Director of Digital Information and Technology at Harvard University

Museums, expressed it well: “IT departments are often regarded as the

computer and printer technicians – not as partners in documenting

intellectual resources (of the museum).”82 Quigley is describing a common

organizational pitfall in museums, that of relegating digital computer

expertise to simple technical support, and not integrating the capacities

(and affordances) of digital information management in other areas of the

museum. One reason for this compartmentalization of skills is the

different backgrounds and training commonly required for one to be a

curator, registrar, educator, and computer specialist, for instance. To

overcome this limitation, a sort of hybrid position in the museum could

have great benefits. There may not be a good title for such a position as

yet, but one could easily imagine combining functions of registrar + IT or

educator + IT. Quigley, himself, comes from “the curatorial side of the

fence” as he calls it, and advocates that there should be more opportunities

in the museum organizational structure for such a hybrid position.

Another organizational aspect to the problem of integrating

information management with other museum functions has been expressed

by others as well as Quigley. He felt that the biggest hurdle was to get

support “from the top” to make changes; staff “are too busy doing their

82 Sam Quigley, interview by author, telephone, Cambridge MA, 27 July 2005.

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jobs to take on additional work unless the (administration) mandates and

supports it.”83 This sentiment is repeated in many of the surveys – that

staff are well aware of the problems of exhibition documenting, but do not

have the resources or authority to initiate it. Sears and Cummings of the

collection staff at SFMoMA also brought this up in their interview. They

suggested that the only way for effective change to occur was to gain the

support of administration by convincing them of the benefits to do so, and

to understand “what’s in it for them.”84

Digital Media Preservation

How do preservation issues of the new media affect this discussion?

L. Thomas Frye warned in his interview that digital records are vulnerable

to media degradation and obsolete software. Fortunately many groups are

at work addressing this issue from museological and scientific

perspectives. The Museum Computer Network (MCN), a nonprofit

organization dedicated to fostering the cultural aims of museums through

the use of computer technologies, is dedicating its 2005 Conference to

digital preservation issues.85 There are many other organizations and

83 Ibid. 84 Sears and Cummings, SFMOMA 23 May 2005. 85 See their website at http://www.mcn.edu/

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government-sponsored projects that are addressing these issues in an

attempt to establish standard practices of digital information management.

The preservation of digital information is still in its infancy, and

beyond the scope of this project. Some fundamental problems, however,

are laid out by Howard Besser, Associate Professor at UCLA Department

of Information Studies, in his 1999 paper, Digital Longevity.86 Besser

defines a conceptual shift in archiving practices that has moved from

preserving a physical object to preserving its intellectual content. He

offers five key areas that will need to be addressed in digital preservation:

the viewing problem, the scrambling problem, the inter-relation problem,

the custodian problem, and the translation problem. Briefly, these can be

summarized as follows.

The viewing problem refers to the necessary knowledge and

computing environment (hardware and software) to allow the user to view

information in the same form that it was created. This means that the skills

of the user, the version of software, and the computer and monitor must be

replicated in order to see the same information that the author created.

The scrambling problem refers to the common practice of

compressing data files to save storage space, and using encryption to limit 86 Howard Besser, Digital Longevity, chapter in Maxine Sitts, ed. Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access (Andover MA: Northeast Document Conservation Center, 2000) 155-166. A copy of this paper can be downloaded at: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Papers/sfs-longevity.html

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access to data. Most compression and encryption schemes are proprietary

and vulnerable to loss of access due to diminished support (the company

going out of business) or version upgrades.

The inter-relation problem refers to the ability of digital data to be

inter-related to other data through hyperlinks – often more than one source

of data is grouped together via links to create a larger data group. If the

links are disconnected, then the related data is lost.

The custodian problem refers to the ambiguity of who would take

responsibility for preserving and maintaining digital data. Traditionally

archivists, registrars, and librarians have been responsible for managing

analog information such as documents, books, records, tapes, and even

videos. Digital data, however does not lend itself to such clear-cut

archiving practices because of its ephemerality and inherent need for

media refreshing and data migration. Currently, the roles of traditional

archiving and digital information management is split between archivists

and IT staff, with little cross-over in training or opportunities.

Finally, the translation problem refers to the change in form that can

result in translating data from one format (e.g., photograph) to another

(e.g., digital image). This problem can also relate to the different software

capabilities of digital documents. For example, a document created on

WordPerfect may not be accurately translated by Microsoft Word,

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changing font characteristics and word spacing. This can occur even with

widely separated versions of the same software.

These five problem areas begin to point where efforts to preserve

digital data can be focused. While currently there are no universal

standards for digital preservation, certain steps can be taken to better

position the museum’s digital information resources for future

standardization. These steps will be laid out in the Recommendation

Section.

One approach that might circumvent the media storage issue is to

not remove and store the data at all. Many experts in the field of digital

preservation advocate keeping digital data in a dynamic form at all times

on servers and computers rather that converting it into static forms such as

CDs and DVDs. Sellam Ismail, Curator of Software at the Computer

History Museum in Mountain View, CA suggested such an approach.87

Ismail described how sometimes the worst thing to happen to the data is

for it to be removed from the computer and stored on media that will

eventually degrade. (Even CDs, once thought to be stable, are not

manufactured to consistently high standards and have proven to be

vulnerable to changes in environmental conditions.) While the software is

“out of circulation” it is less likely to be migrated to upgraded software

87 Sellam Ismail, interview by author, in person, Mt. View CA. 26 April 2005.

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versions or new storage media. As digital storage capacity of fileservers

continue to expand (and decrease in cost), this is a feasible option. To

make it work, however, Ismail says that there must be an administrative

mandate that will direct staff to regularly upgrade and migrate their data

and software.

New Archiving Models

As museums are adapting to new information technologies that offer

a different combination of affordances, it will be necessary to respond to

these changes with new archiving models in order to make full use of the

technology. The exhibition has been described so far as more than a sum

of its parts, and a new model of preserving all that the exhibition

represents may be needed.

Rather than rely on a linear model of archiving composed of lists,

forms, reports, and images, a more global model that can accommodate

multiple layers of information and sensory modes might be useful. Just

such an idea was expressed in an interview with John Chiodo, Director of

Design at Academy Studios, Novato.88 Based on the way that movie

DVDs include many other facets of the movie such as commentary,

multiple endings, out takes, background material, and interviews, Chiodo 88 John Chiodo, interview by author, telephone, 13 Dec 2004. Academy Studios is an exhibit design firm. Their website is www.academystudios.com.

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imagined a similar DVD that could be produced that records a walk-thru

of the exhibition as a visitor would see it (analogous to the “movie” – and

also serving to record an experiential component), followed by a more

detailed layer of exhibition text and images. Another layer could include

interactive or multi-sensory information (sounds, music, interviews, short

movies of visitors using interactive elements). A final layer could contain

research – both used and unused – that went into the exhibition, as well as

information about key people, resources, and any other relevant material.

Besser adds another dimension for new archive models in his 2001

paper, Digital Preservation of Moving Image Material.89 This paper is

primarily directed towards preservation of videos and movies, but the

issues are very applicable to exhibit documenting. He provides a basis for

imagining such a model by articulating two fundamental paradigm shifts,

previously mentioned above, but here in more detail:

Key shifts will cluster around two areas: the first – a movement from saving finished works as a whole to a asset-management approach that deals both with component parts of works and with ancillary materials that relate to the work. The second – learning how to shift from a mode focused on preserving an original negative or print as a physical artifact to one instead focused on saving a digital work that has no tangible embodiment.90

89 Howard Besser, Digital Preservation of Moving Image Material, 2001, http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Papers/amia-longevity.html . 90 Ibid.

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Besser describes how traditional preservation issues were centered

around slowing the deterioration of materials. The “default” condition of

physical objects is to persist, and deteriorate slowly. The primary role of

the person responsible for artifact care and longevity was to provide a

stable environment for its storage and to devise means for access to it. On

the other hand, the default condition of digital data is to become

inaccessible (through constant media deterioration and software

upgrading) unless there is a proactive approach to preserve it. We can still

view thousand-year old cave paintings, but we cannot access the data on

an 8-inch floppy disk of 20 years ago. Thus, one component of a new

archiving model will need to incorporate such a proactive function.

There are two other issues that Besser discusses that will have

implications about how exhibit resources might be used in the future, and

so how those resources might be documented and archived. One is how

digital information is distributed, and how user expectations are

concurrently evolving. The arrival of VCRs in the home had a great

impact of the economics and behavior of movie viewing – people could

rent or buy a movie video and watch it at any convenient time. Users were

no longer dependent on movie theatre hours or seeing the movie before it

left the theatre. This development changed people’s expectations of

accessing the information (seeing the movie), and they began to expect

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having more control over when and how much they could see. The

internet and World Wide Web has increased users’ ability to control their

access to information so that today they expect an certain immediacy of

information access.

The other issue is about information fragmentation and people’s

increased tendency to seek and use information portions rather than an

entirety. “Web-surfing” is a perfect example of the user going from one

information site to another, only reading the portions that interest them.

Surfers will rarely read a full document, but rather skim and jump ahead as

their needs dictate.

The movie DVD is the newest popular entertainment format that

gives people control over their navigation within the information. Users

now fully expect to have the ability to move about in a non-linear

information space and have relatively immediate access to content within

that space. In addition there is a good amount of interactivity inherent in

this media – users can easily direct their movements while they try

different movie endings or play a related video game on the same DVD.

Besser points out that often the DVD user is more interested in the

ancillary content – artwork, background, or out-takes – than the movie

itself. The capability of the movie DVD to contain so much supplementary

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material points to an important affordance offered by this information

format that is relevant to exhibit documenting.

The high demand for additional content implies that some organization needs to supply the ancillary material that helps contextualize the finished product. Interviews, scripts, correspondence, sketches of sets, special effects, out-takes, and even moving images of initial casting calls are all valuable assets that surround a completed work.91

This description of movie documentation also fits the documenting

needs for museum exhibitions and points to reasons for museums to

document as many of their exhibit resources as possible. Besser has shown

that there will be increasing demand for material in fragments, ready to

access and distribute as desired. He succinctly states, “This type of

fragmentation use is a perfect compliment to a post-modern era, where

mass cultural elements are repeatedly re-contextualized.”92

Here lies the benefits for museums that have the ability to repurpose

their exhibition resources. Fragments of exhibit text, research, images,

interviews, interactive elements, and any other contextual or experiential

elements can be thought of as intellectual capital available to use in new

ways. The need for these additional uses might come from education

programs, websites, promotion and marketing, entertainment supplements,

or scholarly research. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid.

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Besser points to strategic advantages that have come from an asset

management approach for film studios that use their past work. A great

deal of income for the studios has resulted from the preservation and

repurposing of film clips. There is the expectation that any given work

will be used in “a variety of secondary multimedia products, from a clip

on the Web, to incorporation within a video game, to a variety of DVDs

and CD-ROMs...”. As Besser states that “Savvy administrators recognize

that today’s capital investment in ... preserving and indexing media assets

can pay off in long-term repeated use and re-use,”93 the same can be said

about museum administrators supporting an exhibition documenting

system that will provide the same benefits.

The Digital Archivist

Throughout this discussion of new affordances and paradigms of

digital information, there has been reference to new roles for the person

documenting exhibitions. For convenience, I will use the term, archivist,

as the person responsible for documenting exhibit resources, but by now it

should be clear that traditional meanings of staff labels do not fully

describe their function in the new paradigms. The digital archivist will

93 Ibid.

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need to approach his/her documenting function within the conceptual

framework of managing digital assets that are content and contextually-

based rather than physically-based. For instance, in the digital

environment, the concept of “master” is more useful than “original” work.

The difference is that a master work is the definitive complete form of the

work, but copies are available, as well as variations to the master.

Another area that the digital archivist will need to become well-

versed in is the methods used for proactively preserving digital data:

refreshing, migration, and emulation. Refreshing involves the transference

of data from an older storage media to a new media to prevent data loss

from media degradation. Migration means transforming digital files from

an earlier software version to a current version, often within an updated

computer environment. Emulation involves creating new software that

will emulate the file encoding of another, usually obsolete, software. The

work of emulation is in the realm of computer programmers, but the

concepts and potential benefits of it should be understood by archivists as

they will no doubt come in contact with it in their work.

There will be an inevitable blending of functions between today’s

archivists and IT staff. The organization and preservation skills of

archivists will continue to be needed, but new skills at digital management

will be required. Besser maintains that as costs for handling and managing

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digital resources decline and strategies for digital data maintenance

solidify, the reasons to keep digital information management solely in the

IT realm will diminish.94 A similar dynamic has occurred in the workplace

regarding the common usage of computers, fileservers, and the internet,

where nearly all employees have the ability to navigate through and

manage information on their own computers.

New software continues to be developed to make exhibition

documentation easier, and some offer tools for smaller museums without a

intranet or IT staff. Most museum collections management software has

exhibition modules that will accommodate exhibit information. A very

affordable comprehensive database can found in PastPerfect by Pastime

Software.95 The information fields in the exhibit module are somewhat

customizable, allowing staff to incorporate cross-reference information so

that other computer programs or paper-based files can be related.

Another approach to managing exhibition files is offered free by the

National Parks Service’s Harpers Ferry Center. This program, Museum

Exhibit Planner, utilizes the common database program, FileMaker Pro,

and can operate in Windows or Macintosh environments.96 It offers a

useful organizational structure to begin a database for any museum. There

94 Ibid. 95 http://www.museumsoftware.com/ 96 http://www.nps.gov/hfc/products/imi/imi-ex-plan.htm

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are separate catalog fields for labels, graphics, artifacts, equipment,

comprehensive plans, and exhibition objectives. In addition, it

demonstrates the use of an exhibit identification number system, similar to

an accessioning number system, that will identify the exhibit number, the

category of the element (e.g., labels, graphics, objects, equipment), and

sub-sets for object numbers. This program can be modified to fit the

particular needs of the museum, and has the full relational database

features of FileMaker Pro. These are only two examples of the digital

tools available to manage exhibition data, and there will continue to be

new developments in this field.

Summary

Well-documented exhibitions are an asset to a museum’s ability to

respond to inquiries from both inside and outside, fulfilling its function of

preserving and sharing their cultural resources. But while accepting this

responsibility is necessary for museums to maintain their status as trusted

cultural stewards and educators, the difficulties of documenting today’s

exhibitions challenge museums’ abilities to do so. Fortunately, new

technological tools are making this easier, and the benefits of increasing a

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museum’s audience and marketing possibilities can outweigh the problems

encountered.

One final thought that might give impetus to embarking on a new

program or renewing efforts to document exhibitions is understanding

how people are changing the way they think and communicate throughout

the global culture. Robert D. Sullivan, Associate Director for Public

Programs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History,

describes how the expanding digital information environment, as typified

by the internet’s capacity to distribute information in new ways,

encourages breadth-based learning.

In the same way that the printed word as a medium of diffusion encouraged linear, sequential, and vertical ways of thinking, the Internet encourages non-linear, non-sequential, horizontal ways of thinking and connecting knowledge.

The instantaneous horizontal connectivity of the Internet collapses time and space and evaporates and/or challenges all efforts by information and knowledge rich institutions to remain isolated, fragmented, walled chambers.97 My added italics attempt to define the core of the paradigm shift in

our information world. Put in this light, museums cannot afford to remain

closed information systems and still be relevant to an increasingly

interconnected world. Museum exhibitions represent an important way 97 Robert D. Sullivan, “The Object in Question: Museums Caught in the Net” (unpublished essay presented at the annual meeting of the Visitor Studies Association, Washington, D.C., August 7, 1998), quoted in Stephen E. Weil, Making Museums Matter (Smithsonian Institution, 2002), 45.

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that our culture understands and experiences this world, and hence these

exhibitions should be documented and made accessible to the culture.

Another perspective comes from Sellam Ismail, Curator at the

Computer History Museum. He remarked that everything is available to

everyone now, all the time, diminishing the importance of “expert”

opinion and giving all viewpoints an equal voice.98 He cited the Wikipedia

website as an example.99 While it has been criticized as offering

information that lacks authority, it can offer multiple viewpoints on any

subject. It becomes the end-user, not the author, that accepts responsibility

for how the information is used. Here museums can provide valuable

guidance as moderator of the multiple voices that are emerging. In fact, if

museums adopt the digital tools for preserving and making accessible their

exhibition resources, they can join the cacophony of global information

helping the culture navigate through the myriad voices.

98 Sellam Ismail, interview, 26 April 2005. 99 http//www.wikipedia.org. Describing itself as “the free encyclopedia,” this site, available in 195 languages editions, is an open-ended encyclopedia on the internet that anyone can contribute articles on any subject, and edit them as well. The history of edited content is available for users to review. There are no limits or rules a to what can be discussed.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Exhibitions represent a substantial resource of contextual

information for the museum and its audiences, as well as a significant

voice of the institution. The exhibition content, aesthetics, and visitor

experiences created are comparable in historic value to the more physical

objects cared for in the museum’s collection. The surveys and interviews

of this project has demonstrated that there are tangible benefits to be

gained by thorough exhibition documentation. These include efficient

access to information by museum staff, enhanced service for public

inquiries, and new possibilities for repurposing exhibit resources to

expand audiences and promote the museum.

The challenges which museums face that prevent them from fully

implementing or managing such an archiving program can be clearly seen

from the survey responses: limited staff time and physical space,

fragmented or insulated departments within the museum, and the lack of

an institutional understanding of the value of well-documented

exhibitions. The following recommendations are meant to guide museums

as they begin or expand their exhibition documentation by directly

addressing these issues.

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Since no two museums are alike – each has unique missions,

policies, boards, staff, collections, and histories – it would be fruitless to

recommend specific procedures or organizational structures that define a

program applicable to all institutions. Rather, if a museum does not have

any exhibition documenting practices at all, these recommendations can

serve as a suggested template for establishing one. They are graduated

from the simplest procedures towards increasingly complex steps that

require larger commitments in staff and budgeting, to, lastly, broad

institutional policy proposals.

I have incorporated the phrase, “exhibition documenting system” as

a general term for an archive model that is characterized by accessibility,

usability, and dynamism rather than existing as a stagnant collection of

material. The actual form of the archive system will vary between

museums depending on each institution’s needs and capabilities.

The recommendations have been grouped in three functional

categories. Steps 1 through 5 can be thought of as “Action Steps,”

suggesting practical solutions that will offer immediate benefits to the

museum staff. Most museums will have already implemented some of

these steps, but taken as a whole, they set a foundation for the next group

of recommendations. Steps 6 through 10 are “Integration and Digitization

Steps,” requiring a greater effort on the part of the staff and administration

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to integrate exhibition documentation into databases and functions within

the museum. Steps 11 through 13 are “Organizational Policy Steps,”

calling for institution-wide changes that will encourage better

communication between departments and create new uses of the

exhibition resources by taking advantage of the new digital management

tools available.

At the end of each recommendation there is a summary of how

specific departments or staff will benefit from taking each step. This is in

hopes of engaging support and participation in making these proposed

changes throughout all levels of museum staff.

Here is a summary of the recommendations, followed by a more

complete discussion of each step:

ACTION STEPS

1. At the minimum, implement formal photographic documentation program for all exhibitions.

2. Establish criteria for exhibition elements to be documented.

3. Create an Exhibition Archives binder with pre-determined sections to be fulfilled by all departments involved with the exhibition.

4. Create a central Exhibition Archives and a designated staff member to coordinate and collect material and data from all departments.

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5. Provide continued training for archive staff in digital asset management.

INTEGRATION AND DIGITIZATION STEPS

6. Make documentation a formal part of the exhibition process, from conception to de-installation.

7. Examine ways to integrate archive and IT staff participation in digital asset management

8. Include exhibition documentation in all technology upgrades and digital conversion programs.

9. Develop an institution-wide intranet that will allow staff access to all exhibition archive materials and data.

10. Integrate procedures and dedicated funding for documenting the exhibitions through grant applications, budgets, and funding requests.

ORGANIZATIONAL POLICY STEPS

11. Engage administration staff and key managers in digital asset management planning, goals, and standards.

12. Encourage collaborative uses of exhibition resources between different departments to better utilize exhibitions for expanded audiences and programming.

13. Encourage marketing, promotional, and any other kind of soliciting function to incorporate exhibition material (images, movies, content, etc.) into its “set of tools” to use.

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ACTION STEPS

1. At the minimum, implement a formal photographic documentation program for all exhibitions.

The simple step of photo documenting the exhibition was the most

often cited recommendation from the surveys. It is practical and the

benefits are immediate. Photographic images can easily be converted to

digital files. The images can be useful for condition reporting and

recording how parts of a complex installation work together. A visual

record of how the exhibits look from the visitor’s point of view will give

much information about the design and aesthetics of the exhibition and the

interpretive modes used to communicate with the audience. This is

information that cannot easily be captured by traditional documenting of

object lists, audience evaluation reports, or CAD files of floorplans and

elevations.

This important step is often overlooked because museum staff

simply do not have the time for this in addition to their other duties. It can

“fall between the cracks” if there is no formal procedure in place. For this

reason, the staff currently responsible for exhibit documentation – whether

they be registrars, project managers, or curators – should create a simple

but mandatory procedure to photograph the exhibition at specific times

and include specific types of views.

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For example, images made during the installation of the exhibition

will be helpful for both de-installation and for future installations. A final

series of images should be made showing the completed exhibition, with

and without visitors, if possible. Photos with visitors will give a human

scale to the exhibit elements, as well as record audience context or

interactivity. Images without people will give the best record of exhibit

design elements for installation purposes. Photographs should be taken

from different vantage points – such as how the viewer will walk through

the exhibits, or elevation views facing east, west, south, and north.

An image checklist created before the exhibition is installed will be

helpful as a guide and reminder to take the pictures. The pictures,

checklist, and any other information regarding the images should be kept

as part of the permanent exhibition record – they will be invaluable to

future designers and curators.

For staff that do not have time to take the pictures, this function

could be given to either professional photographers (to save costs, the

images do not need to be produced at a “professional” level with soft

reflectors and backlighting; they only need to be a clear visual record) or

to volunteers and interns. At this point, it is only important that there be a

visual record; the image quality is not critical. When possible, the best

quality images should be saved for the final installation shots.

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To keep this step simple, I have not specified film or digital

photography, or videography. All of these modes will be useful. If an

exhibition is complex, or if it offers a particular experience for the visitor

through interactives or exhibit design, then a video tape “walk-through” of

the exhibition will greatly enhance the record.

Each museum and exhibition will have different requirements for

visual recording, but the imperative idea here is to create a mandated

procedure and check list that will ensure that some type of photo

documentation will occur before the staff become too distracted by new

projects. The Strong Museum in Rochester, NY, for instance, provides

every department with two digital cameras so that all staff members can

take photos whenever they need to. The Collections Manager at the

Strong, Kate Morgan, uses her cameras for condition reports and loan

documentation, allowing her to insert images into any digital document

during her work.100

Every museum department will benefit from a thorough visual

record of the exhibition. Besides the benefits to registrars and exhibition

staff already mentioned, there can be advantages here for the education

staff such as providing visual benchmarks for the success of interpretive

modes, as well as images and content for educational collateral used in

100 Kate Morgan, interview by author, telephone, Rochester NY, 19 July 2005.

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their programming. The development staff will have a visual record to use

in their solicitations for grants and sponsors, and the marketing staff will

have an important resource for promotions benefiting the museum.

For museum staff that have not yet implemented such a visual

documentation, or for those that have only been able to do it inconsistently

(this is a large group if the surveys are any indication), this step can also

be a starting point to develop a centralized exhibition archive as described

in the following recommendations.

2. Establish criteria for exhibition elements to be documented.

Each museum will have different criteria for exhibit resources to

save, but a thorough listing of those exhibit elements will serve as a guide

to collect the information. Lisa Hancock, the Head Registrar at the

Virginia Museum of Fine Art, suggests that it does not matter who or

which department gathers information as long as someone routinely does

it. “To establish the criteria for the archives, all the departments involved

in the presentation should be solicited for their recommendations for

permanent records to get everybody on board and feeling important.”101 It

will also be useful to see the combined list of saved elements from each

department so that redundancy can be corrected and all the department

101 Lisa Hancock, interview by author, telephone, Richmond VA, 19 July 2005.

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managers can see what information is available.

This will also be a good time to introduce the importance of

recording digital contextual information as suggested by Howard Besser.

Since there are not yet archival standards for recording digital resource

data, documenting as much contextual background about the information

is critical. This would include recording the type and version of software,

the current hardware combination used to create or translate it, the formats

of images (e.g., tif, jpeg) and any other descriptive information about the

digital documentation. This metadata will be needed for future data

migrations and emulations.

The product for this project, Criteria Guide for Documenting

Exhibition Resources, is designed to help museum staff determine which

exhibition elements should be documented and the best format (paper-

based or digital) for that task. It offers a comprehensive list of specific

exhibit elements to choose from. By using the Worksheet to identify the

appropriate uses and needs for the exhibit elements, archivists can build

their own framework for what to save and how to save it.

The criteria list will benefit all the departments by putting in one

place the list of resources that an exhibition generates. Such a list will also

help keep the archives consistent for those museums that rotate their

exhibition project managers or that use outside curators to manage the

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exhibition. This can be the beginning of identifying new uses of the

resources for repurposing, and seeing new relationships between the

resources and the various department functions.

3. Create an Exhibition Archives binder with pre-determined sections to be fulfilled by all departments involved with the exhibition.

This is also a relatively simple and straight-forward

recommendation, but critical for the future development of a central

exhibition archives. This step builds on a common practice in many

museums – keeping exhibition binders that contain documentation related

to the exhibition such as images, condition and loan records, and perhaps a

floorplan. The binder is an informational structure that can be adapted to

any museum and exhibition, and does not depend on digital

recordkeeping. The new task here is to include more categories to

accommodate new forms of information in the binders. This can include

CDs and DVDs of exhibit content, images, and research; critical software

for programs used in the exhibits; specifications for computer or

audiovisual equipment; information about the design and materials used in

the exhibition; audience evaluations; and marketing and promotional

collateral.

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A template for any exhibition binder should be created that includes

the categories of information relevant to each museum, as developed in the

previous step. Each exhibition will not necessarily fill all categories, but a

template will remind staff of what data is missing. This step will enhance

and support the movement towards a centralized exhibitions archive.

This step also can be largely completed by volunteers or interns with

staff supervision, since much of the work would be repetitive and time-

consuming. It would be a particularly good experience for interns because

it would involve interactions with all of departments, providing a

comprehensive understanding of the organization and operation of the

museum.

The benefits here are the same gained by implementing the previous

recommendations, with the additional advantage of creating a single place

for the various department staff to access the information. Having a single

archive will also encourage consistency over time with documentation and

digital formats because all departments will begin to view the exhibit

archive binder as a universal resource.

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4. Create a central Exhibition Archives and a designated staff member to coordinate and collect material and data from all departments.

If the first three recommendations have been implemented, the next

step is to design a central location within the museum for archiving

purposes and to formally designate a staff person or create a new archivist

position to manage it. The exhibition binders can serve as the beginning or

a supplement to a formal institutional archives. A central location that is

easily accessible to the staff is the key to a useful archives.

As described earlier, there are unique challenges with institutional

archiving in museums. Often, it is the registrar or collections manager that

takes the role of institutional archivist, but as pointed out by Lisa

Hancock, the critical step is to make an official designation: “If there isn’t

a designated Hammer, it simply won’t happen. This person has to have

institutional backing in order to pry information from each department, or

they’ll simply be ignored.” 102 It is the designated person’s interests and

aptitude that is more important than their title. This person should be given

the resources and authority to adequately carry out this responsibility and

a budget for creating and maintaining the archives.

This recommendation also will help mitigate one of the most

common complaints from the survey – that of not enough time for staff to

102 Lisa Hancock, interview, 19 July 2005.

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properly document exhibit resources. If a designated person can oversee

the collection and organization of this material in a single location, the

documenting process can be efficient and time-saving. It is too much to

expect busy staff to take on the additional burden of documenting exhibits,

especially given the diverse forms of information and the many sources

from which they were created. A designated exhibition archivist will be

able to establish procedures and standards that will streamline the process.

At this juncture, if a central exhibition archives is created, the

benefits to staff and the operation of the museum will greatly increase in

terms of efficiency of retrieving data, and finding new uses for the

information. There can be a smoother flow of information between

departments, and the museum’s ability to respond to inquiries from

researchers, educators, and the public will be enhanced. The museum will

be serving its audiences better.

5. Provide continued training for archive staff in digital asset management.

This is a simple yet critical step to help archive staff make the shift

from artifact-based archiving to digital asset-based archiving as described

earlier by Howard Besser. The new archiving paradigm requires a

proactive approach to preserve digital information, and the exhibit archive

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person will need to stay current in the developing field of digital

preservation. This will include knowledge of data refreshing, migration,

and emulation, as well as the environmental requirements for digital media

preservation. Many mid-sized museums will only be able to designate an

existing staff person to manage the exhibition archives, so continued

training is essential for the archivist to augment their archiving knowledge

base with current information management principles.

There is an opportunity here to introduce a hybrid archive/IT

position to the museum, which will be detailed further in Step 7. The

designated archivist does not necessarily need to come from a archival

background. If a staff person from IT has the interest and aptitude for

resource archiving, then they may be a perfect fit for the job. They will

bring an invaluable skill set to the position as well. In this case, additional

training in archive or registration principles will be called for. Herein lies

a potential benefit for the museum – bringing together separated skill sets

in a way that can provide new possibilities for innovative and efficient

information management.

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INTEGRATION AND DIGITIZATION STEPS

6. Make documentation a formal part of the exhibition process, from conception to de-installation.

If there is a designated staff person to manage the exhibit archives,

then it becomes easier to set in place a formal procedure for capturing

information about the exhibition, beginning at conception on through to

the final de-installation stage. The archivist will develop the procedures

(with input from all of the departments involved as to what to save) and

track the progress of the exhibit development.

Many of the surveys suggested this step as a way to ensure that

documentation is completed. Formal procedures introduce a systematic

approach to documenting, making the job more manageable by reducing

the process to smaller steps, and providing “road markers” to assess the

progress of the exhibition. It also creates an awareness among all the

departments about the importance of on-going documentation.

An example of a formal procedure might include the steps for

retaining original exhibit ideas, preliminary research and formative

evaluations, initial fabrication estimates and designs, interview lists and

transcripts, research, conceptual art, artifact documentation, final designs

with samples of colors and fabrics, text labels, photos of fabrication or

installation, computer and audiovisual equipment information, finished

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images of the exhibition, visitor experience, feedback and evaluations,

promotional and marketing collateral, and future plans or venues for the

exhibition.

The benefactors here would be staff members who ordinarily would

preserve exhibit information but who often lack the time to do so.

Registrars, project managers, educators, curators, and exhibit staff will

better be able to fulfill their contributions for documentation if there are

specific steps which identify what to save. The designated staff person or

archivist can serve as a liaison, reminding key staff and tracking the

various kinds of data to save.

7. Examine ways to integrate archive and IT staff participation in digital asset management.

This step may require much brainstorming among the department

managers, with no easy solutions at first. The concept, however, will be

useful to finding innovative solutions to information management that

cross disciplinary boundaries. Sam Quigley, Harvard’s Director of Digital

Information and Technology, gave an example of how restructuring their

IT department created new interrelations with the other staff members.

The IT group was divided into two layers of staff – one was the

hardware/computer technicians (those who kept computers and printers

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functioning), and the other was made up of “intellectual resource

managers” who would work with other staff such as curators and registrars

to manage digital resources. This IT group functioned as partners with

other staff to devise and manage the museum’s resources, integrating IT

skills and experience with the perspectives of other departments.

8. Include exhibition documentation in all technology upgrades and digital conversion programs.

Just as the software that museum staff use is periodically upgraded

and old media formats are refreshed to newer ones, the digital records in

the exhibition documentation should be similarly refreshed or migrated, if

possible. There will be instances when the digital data cannot be migrated

(such as an obsolete computer program) but the storage media that holds it

can still be refreshed. Then later, it may still be possible for programmers

to write emulation software that will mimic the original program or

hardware. It will be lost forever if it is not at least migrated to new media.

Rose Wood, Register at the Des Moines Art Center, described in her

survey responses how their Exhibition Archive Project began in 1997, and

continued to evolve as new technology upgrades became available.

We began entering all exhibition items onto a FileMaker database and when we upgraded our collection management software in 2003, this database was migrated to integrate with the collection

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management software. We can research by artist or title for any artwork ever displayed at the Art Center and cross-reference back to the exhibition. This helps tremendously with research.

The key here is to not let the exhibition documentation be dead

archives, but to think of it as dynamic data that can be revised and updated

as needed. This relates to the hard copy files as well as the digital files. If

the exhibition has been revised, or re-designed for new venues, the

documentation should reflect those changes. In the long run, it is better to

utilize the documented elements in the archives rather that store them

away for good, as a well-worn book in a library has served a more useful

life than a pristine book never opened.

In terms of practicality, it is currently not possible to migrate and

upgrade every element, but the concept is an important one. First, the

information in the archives will be more readily used by staff because it

remains accessible. Second, standards and protocols for digital data

preservation are currently being developed by several groups and

agencies. Eventually there will be proactive steps that staff can take to

preserve the data - as long as it has been maintained in viable form. Until

that occurs, however, every reasonable effort should be made to keep the

digital exhibition files current and accessible.

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9. Develop an institution-wide intranet that will allow staff access to all exhibition archive materials and data.

This is the next logical step for fully utilizing digital technology for

efficient access by museum staff and making the exhibition resources

available for repurposing by other departments in the future. It is,

however, up to each individual museum administration to decide whether

it is feasible or even desirable to take this step. Some museums, like the

Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, has an institutional

stake in being fully digitized. Many large museums with well-staffed IT

departments and a significant presence on the internet may also benefit

from this step.

Feliz Medrano, Interim Exhibitions Coordinator at the Seattle Art

Museum described in her survey response the usefulness of an intranet

system: “The internal website where all archived materials are posted

makes it easy for all staff to access information when they need it without

having to ask someone.”

There can be different degrees of developing such an intranet, from

a broadly functioning system that will interface with other web functions

and shared websites with other museums, to a simple in-house system that

will allow staff to easily review data from other departments. There are

many data management systems available to provide a framework for an

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intranet, at many levels of cost and complexity. More detailed information

can be found in the Document Management Systems section of the

Background chapter.

10. Integrate procedures and dedicated funding for documenting exhibitions through grant applications, budgets, and funding requests.

Several survey respondents and interviewees (such as Dr. Mary

Anne Staniszewski) recommended that one of the ways to obtain the

resources needed for documenting exhibitions is to include a discussion

and request for documentation funding within the grant writing or

exhibition budget at the beginning of the process. If an awareness for the

need to document exhibitions is cultivated in the early stages of funding, it

can help justify the inclusion of specific budget amounts for staff time,

equipment (such as cameras and extra media storage), and long-term

media care (such as environmental controls and data migrations). Even in-

house funded exhibitions should include line-items in the budget to ensure

that the documentation process can be completed. John Lawrence,

Director of Museum Programs at the Historic New Orleans Collection

described how documentation costs are incorporated into budget meetings

at his museum. Their staff photographer will estimate time and film

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development costs for photo documenting upcoming exhibitions so that

the resources will be available when needed.103

A new funding effort may be needed to initiate a comprehensive

documenting program. This program might include increased staffing and

digital tools (cameras, scanners, DVD burners, etc.) to integrate new

information management systems into the museum’s existing

infrastructure. If museums can demonstrate that the exhibition resources

are helping to expand their audiences through efficient repurposing, then

funding proposals could be directed to government agencies such as the

Institute for Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment

for the Arts, as well as state cultural funding agencies. The case can also

be made to sponsors (corporate or private) that a well-documented

exhibition will provide evidence of their largess and a potential resource to

be used to promote their interests or image. In this way, the benefactors of

this step can be the sponsors and grantors as well as the museum staff.

103 John Lawrence, interview, telephone, New Orleans LA, 19 July 2005.

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ORGANIZATIONAL POLICY STEPS

11. Engage administration staff and key managers in digital asset management planning, goals, and standards.

Those responsible for documenting the exhibitions are usually aware

of the breadth of materials to archive and the need for upgraded

information management tools. Often, however, the administration or

department managers do not have a full grasp of the issues and benefits of

a well-documented exhibition system as laid out in this project. It is not

always easy to “change the top” from lower levels, but many of these

recommendations will need support from above in order to be

implemented.

If management staff can be included in the planning stages of a

exhibition documenting system, they can learn that specific goals and

tangible benefits would result from the effort. It may be helpful to choose

only one of the recommended steps presented here that has the best chance

for a positive reception and will soon realize benefits that management can

quantify. Once a shift towards a better documenting program is initiated, it

will be easier to expand towards more substantial improvements.

This step can also be a beginning point for setting standards for

exhibit documenting between all of the departments. Consistent standards

for computer hardware and software will enhance the staff’s ability to

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access and re-use digital files (such as research and text panels). This will

make data refreshing and migration more efficient, as well as ensure that

digital files will not be lost to unsupported software. Standards can also be

set for the type of resources to document. For instance, it may be decided

to always save primary research, all visible text, a video walk-thru,

installation images, color and fabric samples, and visitor evaluations. All

other types of documentation could vary according to the exhibition or the

needs of the museum.

Although each museum might have a different combination of

standards, the act of establishing institution-wide standards for

documenting exhibition resources can begin a process of defining

standards that would be useful for all museums. As institutions gain

experience in this area, their solutions can form a framework of best

practices that can be refined and encouraged through professional

organizations such as AAM and AASLH.

12. Encourage collaborative uses of exhibition resources between different departments to better utilize exhibitions for expanded audiences and programming.

As exhibitions represent a collaborative product that was made

possible by all of the departments in a museum, it follows that there may

be beneficial uses by those departments as well. Educational staff can

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utilize exhibit elements in their programming; exhibits staff can try new

products or showcase new techniques in exhibit design; curators can use

previous exhibitions as new contextual material or as a spring board for

new exhibitions; marketing staff can try new promotional avenues for

future exhibitions. These kinds of repurposing by all of the departments

should be encouraged and facilitated by an accessible exhibition

documenting system.

As the technology of information delivery expands the choices of

how to use exhibition elements, new combinations of usage will be

created. In order to fully take advantage of the new possibilities for

reaching new audiences, there needs to be clear communication and data

exchange between the different departments. By using exhibition

resources and archives as an example for inter-departmental collaboration,

the museum can improve its overall efficiency and function of its internal

workings and of serving it audiences.

13. Encourage marketing, promotional, and any other kind of soliciting function to incorporate exhibition resources into its “toolbox”.

Where the previous recommendation focused on the internal

potentials of integrating exhibition documentation within departmental

functions, this recommendation emphasizes how the museum can turn

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outwards in finding new uses for these resources. This step encompasses a

broad spectrum of externally-oriented possibilities that will be available in

digital formats. Here, the uses and “end products” of the exhibition

resources are limited only to the digital formats and delivery systems that

are continually evolving.

For example, exhibition portions can be re-edited as supplemental

features on movie DVDs whose main feature relates to the exhibition

subject. The exhibition can be re-packaged showing relevant interviews,

film or video footage, still shots with commentary, or any other manner of

material that would enhance the main movie. As movies begin to be

delivered via the internet, there are greater possibilities of exposing new

audiences to the museum’s work.

Another content delivery option is the cell phone, which is evolving

into a personal entertainment/media device. In fact, over 2,000 companies

are developing content to be distributed on mobile phones – from games to

TV shows. The wireless carriers providing the service need content – and

lots of it. Younger users are comfortable using their phones as a way to

gain information about their world – in small data packages.104 Sam

Quigley, Director, Digital Information and Technology at Harvard Art

Museums agrees with this assessment. “Young people expect to get their 104 Wendy Kaufman, “Profile: Growth in Cell Phone Entertainment Market,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, 2 May 2005.

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information in new ways (like cell phones),” he says, “and if museums do

not participate (in these delivery systems), they can be seen as being even

more irrelevant to young peoples’ lives.”105

Museum exhibitions, it can be argued, are “content” – as used in the

media/technology sense – on a grand scale. It is not far-fetched to imagine

exhibition material parceled out for public consumption on movie DVDs

and cell phones in the future as the paradigm of information distribution

continues to evolve.

The museum has in effect enhanced the preservation of its

exhibition resources at this point simply by disseminating them into the

digital information universe. A key affordance of digital data is its

capability of exact duplication, and the more this data is available the

more it will be copied. By taking advantage of the increasing capabilities

of information and communication technologies, museums can use

exhibition documentation to explore new avenues of information delivery

and promotional potentials.

105 Sam Quigley, interview, 27 July 2005.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

REPORTS AND JOURNALS Archibald, Robert R. “History is Not a Museum.” History News

(May/June 1994): 10-13. Butcher-Younghans, Sherry. “A New Era of Collecting.” History

News (May/June 1994): 26-28. Crus-Ramirez, Alfredo. “The Heimatmuseum: A Perverted

Forerunner.” Museum 37 (1985): 242-244. Elder, Betty Doak. “Collecting the 20th Century: AASLH Pre-

Annual Meeting Conference.” History News (1988): 9-12. Franco, Barbara. “The History Museum Curator of the 21st

Century.” History News (Summer 1996): 6-10. Frye, L. Thomas and Nancy Kolb, chairpersons. “AASLH Special

Report: 20th Century Collecting: Guidelines and Case Studies.” History News 47 (May/June 1991).

Frye, L. Thomas. “Museum Collecting for the Twenty-First

Century.” In A Common Agenda for History Museums: American Association for State and Local History Conference Proceedings, Feb. 19-20, 1987, edited by Lonn W. Taylor, 32-38.

________. “The Recent Past is Prologue.” Museum News

(November 1974): 24-27. Green, Harvey. “Collecting Collectives: Collaboration in Collecting

and Exhibiting.” In A Common Agenda for History Museums: American Association for State and Local History Conference Proceedings, Feb. 19-20, 1987, edited by Lonn W. Taylor, 50-53.

Kinard, John R. “The Neighbourhood Museum as a Catalyst for

Social Change.” Museum 37 no. 4 (1985): 217.

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Mayo, Edith. “Collecting the Twentieth Century.” History News 44 (May/June 1989): 30-32.

Rounds, Jay. “Meaning Making: A New Paradigm for Museum

Exhibits?” Exhibitionist 18 (Fall 1999): 5-8. Rubenstein, Harry R. “Collecting for Tomorrow: Sweden’s

Contemporary Documentation Program.” Museum News 1 (August 1985): 55-60.

Schlereth, Thomas J. “Collecting Today for Tomorrow.” Museum

News 60 (March/April 1982): 29-37. ________. “Contemporary Collecting for Future Recollecting.”

Museum Studies Journal (Spring 1984): 23-30. Shiffer, Rebecca A. “Where Did the Twentieth Century Go?”

History News (Autumn 1996): 17-19. Silverman, Lois H. “Meaning Making Matters: Communication,

Consequences, and Exhibit Design.” Exhibitionist 18 (Fall 1999): 9-14.

BOOKS Alderson, William T., ed. Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons:

The Emergence of the American Museum. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1992.

Alexander, Victoria D. Museums & Money: The Impact of Funding

on Exhibitions, Scholarship, and Management. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Ascher, Robert. “Tin*Can Archeology.” In Material Culture Studies

in America, ed. Thomas J. Schlereth, 325-337. Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History, 1982.

Barron, Stephanie, ed. “Degenerate Art” : The Fate of the Avant-

Garde in Nazi Germany, Los Angeles: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991.

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Buck, Rebecca A. and Gilmore, Jean Allman, ed. The New Museum

Registration Methods, Washington D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1998.

Harper, Richard H.R. and Sellen, Abigail J. The Myth of the

Paperless Office, London: MIT Press, 2002. Kreps, Christina F. Liberating Culture: Cross-cultural Perspectives

on Museums, Curation, and Heritage Preservation. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Landow, George P. Hypertext 2.0, Baltimore: The John Hopkins

University Press, 1997. Lord, Barry and Lord, Gail Dexter. The Manual of Museum

Exhibitions, Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2002. Martin, Paul. Popular Collecting and the Everyday Self: The

Reinvention of Museums? London: Leicester University Press, 1999. Mayo, Edith. “Connoisseurship of the Future.” In Twentieth-Century

Popular Culture in Museums and Libraries, ed. Fred E. H. Schroeder, 12-25. Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1981.

Sandeen, Eric. Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and

1950s America, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995. Staniszewski, Mary Anne. The Power of Display: A History of

Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.

Steichen, Edward. The Family of Man, New York: Museum of

Modern Art, 1955. Weil, Stephen E. Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations.

Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1990. ________. Making Museums Matter. Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution, 2002.

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Witcomb, Andrea. Re-Imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Yeingst, William, and Lonnie G. Bunch. “Curating the Recent Past:

The Woolworth Lunch Counter, Greensboro, North Carolina.” In Exhibiting Dilemmas: Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian, eds. Amy Henderson and Adrienne L. Kaeppler, 143-155. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1997.

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APPENDIX 1

Survey Cover Letter

Survey Instrument

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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Attn: Registrar/Exhibit Records Mgr. 151 Third St. San Francisco, CA 94103 March 15, 2005 Dear Colleague,

Please let me introduce myself – my name is Glen Myers, and I

am the Curator at the Novato History Museum, Novato, California. I am also conducting research for my master’s project in the Museum Studies Program at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley.

My project is focused on how the content and visitor experience of

special museum exhibitions are documented for future use. These special exhibitions represent a major investment of museum staff time and resources. In addition, many of today’s exhibitions strive to create an entertaining, interactive, and multi-sensory experience for the visitor. These experiential elements, however, do not lend themselves well to traditional archiving methods, and it is often difficult for staff to find the time to preserve this material after the exhibition has closed.

I have enclosed a survey that seeks to find how art and history

museums are managing their exhibition documentation in this new experiential environment. I am hoping to learn of strategies that can offer solutions, or to better articulate what the problems are so that solutions can be found.

Your responses in this survey will contribute valuable insights to

this issue – whether or not you actively document your special exhibitions. The survey should only take ten minutes or so, and if there is another person on your staff who would be a more appropriate responder, please forward it to them. My email address is on the survey, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

I would like to thank you in advance for completing the survey

and returning it in the enclosed stamped envelope. I greatly appreciate your time and consideration, and if you are interested in the survey results, just check the last box on the back page. Please mail the survey

148

back to me by April 8th so I can include your responses in my final results.

Best Regards. Glen Myers

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SURVEY ABOUT DOCUMENTING SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS For more information, contact Glen Myers glentmyers@earthlink.net

1. If your museum documents its special exhibitions, check the exhibit elements that you generally save (whether in physical or digital form):

Text panels and labels Audio- Images or photos used in exhibits Record Interactive elements used in exhibits Floorplans or elevations of exhibition Design Photos of completed exhibition Resear Visitor experience information Evalua Other (specify) ____________________ Other (

_____________________________________ If your museum does not save or document your exhibitions, p

your own reasons. Then rank the top two reasons (with 1 being the most common

_____ Exhibitions are not made by my museum

_____ Staff is not sure how to document them

_____ Not enough storage space

_____ There is not a clear understanding of who would docum

_____ Not enough time for staff to document them

_____ There are too many technical problems (e.g., with comp

_____ There are no benefits to be gained by documenting them

_____ No budget to document them

_____ There is no mandate to document them, or no one has t

_____ Other (specify) ________________________________

_____ Other (specify) ________________________________

Even if your museum does not document exhibitions, your respquestion and then return this survey.

2. In what way does your museum generally save or document th Please rank the most common ways (with 1 being the most com

_____ Keep physical elements (photographs, models, docume

_____ Copies of audio and video tapes used in the exhibition

_____ Digital copies of text (text labels, documents, and resea

_____ Digital copies of images, sounds, or movies (e.g., CDs

_____ ____________________________________________

Turn page over

Please attach your business card here or fill in: Your museum name: __________________________ ___________________________________________ Type of museum: Art ____ History ____ Both ____ Your name: _________________________________ Your position: _______________________________

visual elements s (e.g., object ID numbers) of exhibited items Audience feedback or evaluations features (colors, materials, graphics or signs) ch prior to exhibition tion reports, press clippings, other collateral material specify)

lease circle any of the following reasons why, or add

, and 2 being the next most common).

ent exhibitions

uters & digital media storage)

aken the initiative to do so.

_______________________

_______________________

onse is important to my study. Please skip to the last

ese exhibition elements? mon), or add your own descriptions:

nts, fabricated elements, etc.)

rch)

and DVDs)

____________________________________

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3. Are there elements that were not saved from past

exhibitions that you wish had been? YES NO DON’T KNOW

If YES, briefly explain what they were and why you would want them now. ____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Who generally is the person in your museum responsible for documenting exhibit elements? (check any number)

Registrar Curator Education staff Outside vendor Administrative staff Volunteers Director Exhibit staff

Others (specify who) __________________________________________________________________

5. Please circle the reasons your museum documents its exhibitions. Then rank the top three reasons (No. 1 being the most important).

_____ Internal use _____ For future exhibit designers

_____ Re-use of exhibit elements _____ Public access and inquiries

_____ Promotion and marketing purposes _____ To enhance institution memory

_____ For future curators and scholars _____ Mandated by funder or grantor

_____ ________________________________ _____ _______________________________

6. Can you describe specific benefits your museum has gained by saving or documenting its exhibitions?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

7. What problems make documenting the exhibition difficult (or not as complete as you might like)?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

8. What has been your successes with documenting exhibitions? What methods or strategies have you found especially helpful and would recommend to other museums?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Do you have any comments or other thoughts about documenting exhibitions that you would like to add?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your time and thoughtfulness. If you would like to see the results of this survey, please check here...........

For questions, contact Glen Myers <glentmyers@earthlink.net>

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APPENDIX 2

RESPONSES FROM SURVEY ABOUT DOCUMENTING SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS (bold numbers represent the total responses) 1. If your museum documents its special exhibitions, check the exhibit elements that you generally save (whether in physical or digital form):

49 Text panels and labels

37 Images or photos used in exhibits

30 Interactive elements used in exhibits

48 Floorplans or elevations of exhibition

52 Photos of completed exhibition

38 Visitor experience information

36 Audio-visual elements

50 Records (e.g., object ID numbers) of exhibited items

38 Audience feedback or evaluations

38 Design features (colors, materials, graphics or signs)

44 Research prior to exhibition

53 Evaluation reports, press clippings, collateral material

Other (specify):

Banners – we hang them in the hallways of our office space – primarily

All exhibition-related contracts, memos, correspondence, notes, shipping info, emails.

Publications (catalogs & ephemera)

Permissions; Copyright info., Payment file.

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Checklists, catalogs, all print materials.

Brochures, advertisements, curriculum guides, tapes of radio/TV coverage.

Occasionally exhibitions are displayed online, and those exhibitions are kept up indefinitely after the physical exhibition closes.

Shipping records, received forms, and loan agreements.

Financial records, insurance, meetings, shipping.

If your museum does not save or document your exhibitions, please circle any of the following reasons why, or add your own reasons. Then rank the top two reasons (with 1 being the most common, and 2 being the next most common). Exhibitions are not made by my museum

1 Staff is not sure how to document them

2 Not enough storage space

1 There is not a clear understanding of who would document exhibitions

3 Not enough time for staff to document them

There are too many technical problems (e.g., with computers & digital

media storage)

There are no benefits to be gained by documenting them

1 No budget to document them

2 There is no mandate to document them, or no one has taken the

initiative to do so.

Other (specify):

One problem we have is that each department maintains their own records – curatorial records for exhibitions are separate from registrar’s files, print clippings, etc. Not enough time to consolidate.

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2. In what way does your museum generally save or document these exhibition elements? Please rank the most common ways (with 1 being the most common), or add your own descriptions:

1 2 3 4 Ranking

15 6 5 6

Keep physical elements (photographs, models, documents, fabricated elements, etc.)

7 12 8 Copies of audio and video tapes used in the exhibition

21 9 2 Digital copies of text (text labels, documents, and research)

2 14 8 4 Digital copies of images, sounds, or movies (e.g., CDs and DVDs)

3. Are there elements that were not saved from past exhibitions that you wish had been? 23 - YES 11 - NO 16 - DON’T KNOW

If YES, briefly explain what they were and why you would want them now. In some cases we would recycle graphics. We then would have to have a new one printed and mounted. At one time the various exhibition materials were kept by different departments and not cataloged properly. Exhibition elements are not kept in Registration, as well; most can be saved digitally on the museum’s database (TMS).

Photo details.

Historically, the oldest exhibitions have the spottiest records ... our institution is 70 years old.

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Installation photos kept sporadically.

Our exhibition archive project began in 1997. At that time we began to organize our exhibition files into a 10 category system. We now include digital images as documentation. Very early exhibits were not documented well as there are holes in the story of past exhibits.

Attendance figures / Programming / Events, etc.

Press Releases, advertising, etc.

Audio-visual materials often are lost or unusable, certainly a preservation issue. Before computers were used to do research, produce labels, floorplans, graphics, databases, etc., there is little documentation. After the advent of computers for these tasks documentation is better. There is more Contractor-created exhibits, AV, Waysides, etc. In most cases the documentation regarding the media is not turned over for permanent retention.

Images of installations for reference.

List of objects used in exhibit was not always documented in the past. Particularly true for items not owned by museum. Sometimes staff will want to use the same item as before, but hard to figure out what the item was.

Digital copies of labels, PR photos, text panels.

Not that I know of, but other departments may have had problems. I have been able to retrieve graphics, design layouts, and wall label texts years after some exhibitions close. Not enough staff at that time to manage the information and to ensure that it was properly put into the departments that would house the information, i.e., Registration, Film/Video, Archives – Photo vs. Paper and the means in which to catalog if necessary. Due to turn around times of the exhibitions.

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Sources / citations for research were not always adequately documented. We sometimes re-use elements of exhibits but question the sources for information contained in old label copy.

Label information for permanent collection objects.

We too frequently failed to photograph the completed exhibit.

Digital files for the reproduction of damaged or broken elements.

General description of exhibition. Summary of artist & lenders included in exhibition final checklist. Attendance figures, etc.

Space limitations mean we cannot always keep / store exhibit platforms, casework, etc., especially after a lot of use or damage.

Copies of text and graphics.

All of our archive files prior to 1962 contain the barest of information (e.g., a checklist and an invitation to an opening). The limits to research success are obvious.

4. Who generally is the person in your museum responsible for

documenting exhibit elements? (check any number)

Registrar Curator Education staff Outside vendor Administrative staff Volunteers Director Exhibit staff Others (specify who): Public Relations, Marketing, Photography Dept., Library, Museum Archivist, Admissions, Conservators, Project Manager, Exhibit Designer, Graphics Dept., AV Dept., IT Dept.

Number of museums that checked three or more positions above: 35

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5. Please circle the reasons your museum documents its exhibitions. Then rank the top three reasons (No. 1 being the most important).

1 2 3 Ranking

13 7 8 Internal use

3 4 8 Re-use of exhibit elements

9 2 Promotion and marketing purposes

2 10 11 For future curators and scholars

2 3 4 For future exhibit designers

5 6 2 Public access and inquiries

17 6 4 To enhance institution memory

3 1 Mandated by funder or grantor

1 Other: To ensure the completeness of institutional archive.

1 Other: Support material for grant proposals

1 Other: Curators can’t throw anything away. (written by a Registrar)

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6. Can you describe specific benefits your museum has gained by saving

or documenting its exhibitions?

Use of exhibition installation photographs for presentations about the museum; promotion of museum to potential donors/collaborators; ability to assist scholars w/research projects; re-use design elements for future shows; useful for planning future shows. We have been able to reuse original research in a variety of exhibit and web-based additions.

Good reference material for the development of future exhibitions. Possibility of re-using exhibition components when appropriate. Allows for more complete cataloging when inputting exhibition records into our digital database (which keeps exhibition as well as object/loan/media records). The MMA has 30+ special exhibitions each year. Archiving past shows gives us a shortcut to preparing and installing future shows. Subject of past exhibitions are often the same subjects being researched by authors, scholars, & filmmakers. An exhibition file w/ lots of data makes servicing these researchers a very efficient experience.

Press images have been useful.

Curatorial research benefits most.

Re-use elements, documents use of collections, documents impact of exhibit on/within community. Documentation is an excellent resource for designers and helps them track what is in their inventory. It also helps them tease out design successes and failures. The practice is essential if we are organizing the exhibition that will travel to other venues. We are able to answer information requests regarding exhibitions over our whole history (from 1914). We frequently provide information to other institutions regarding exhibition histories of objects in their collections. We are asked by researchers in-house and out about previous exhibitions. Prior, we would not answer the exhibition requests because of lack of resources, time, materials. With the material now organized, we are able to answer requests.

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It’s a huge help in future planning, from generating contracts to developing floorplans. Gives us a sense of what to expect/predict for future comparable shows (size, type, etc.). We reference them if we happen to be repeating a similar exhibit. We use them for exhibits celebrating important anniversaries (institutional archives). Occasionally we re-use or re-work specific sections for other purposes, such as traveling exhibits, curriculum materials, publications. This saves both time and money.

Saving exhibition cases for re-use.

Knowledge of previous exhibitions.

These are the most heavily used archival collections – by scholars, students, curators, designers, registrars, collectors – you could go on for pages about how each benefited. Artifacts are often used in different exhibits, visitor inquiries, new exhibits w/ similar themes.

Previous exhibit materials provide a starting point for the planning of new exhibitions. Photo documentation and (?) provide marketing tools.

Rehabilitation – most exhibits last a minimum of 20 to 30 years. Legal – Copyright, permissions, fees, etc.

Keeps an institutional history. It would be nice to get public response – sometimes that is done by marketing. Last summer, interns photo-documented permanent exhibits – this has helped tremendously w/recent inventory projects as we are able to verify that “pull slips” are accurate (or not). In our department, we have been able to recreate an object’s exhibition history fairly completely because of the archives. We changed computer software & had incomplete data, but were able to fill in gaps. Ability to re-use fabrication materials that are conservation safe such as paints, wood, and certain types of plexiglass. Each time able to estimate certain types of visitation per galleries and attendance in certain areas of buildings and flows for designers of exhibitions. Seeing artifact history on exhibit – how long and length of time. Seeing different security strategies and how effective they were.

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Source reference; Research.

Helps update or repair current exhibits (saving copies of photos, labels, & design elements). Patrons often have questions about something they saw on exhibit several years ago.

Used as supplemental materials for successful grant applications.

Use in grant preparation.

You don’t have to re-do work that has already been done.

Elements were re-used in other exhibitions, thus saving money. Well documented institutional archives. Promotion of museum.

Historical reference in planning future projects.

We keep all related written documentation in a central filing system & in archives (if 5+ years old). This is a constant source of information for budgeting, marketing, & design. We like to look back at what succeeded and what failed, and why.

Very helpful in terms of answering public inquiries.

Cost savings.

No need to rewrite labels, re-fabricate furniture, etc.

To re-use photos & graphics. To re-install an exhibit or loan it to other museums. Re-use of floorplans.

Documents institutional history. Aids in future exhibition planning & budgeting.

Research, provenance, object history.

All stats – floorplans, clippings (newspaper) or press materials are used to help illustrate costs and needs during state budgeting sessions.

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Address legal inquiries, historical value for the institution and the artworks, reference for future exhibitions. Without the archives, we’d be of little assistance to researchers. Reference source for staff in order to repeat or enhance successful elements from past exhibitions. Great institutional memory, excellent for promotional and marketing purposes. We often send packets to potential lenders or sponsors including past publications to show excellent quality of work at our institution.

Documentation provides a base of information for all future projects.

7. What problems make documenting the exhibition difficult (or not as

complete as you might like)?

Lack of time to consolidate files after show has ended; lack of staffing; lack of storage – departments can be territorial with their “archived” materials. Each section has their own way of documenting their info. So there is no central place for retrieving past exhibit information.

None really, though detailed installation photography takes a long time to complete.

Not having space to store all of the physical materials produced for exhibitions.

We’d like to keep everything, but lack storage. Digital imaging has alleviated this challenge recently.

Abandoned technologies – e.g., interactive computer-based programs which no longer support an exhibition element.

Camera equipment; storage.

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Time – money – personnel.

Space to store, hold. Locating material from past exhibits.

Virtually everything is documented electronically but this is generally stored within these individual departments. Gathering all the info and storing it in one place is the challenge. We do a reasonably good job at this within the exhibit planning department.

Storage space and staffing.

Not having a designated Archivist.

SPACE! There’s never enough space (digital or physical) in which to contain all our records.

Getting the information from different departments that played a role in the exhibit development is sometimes difficult. Lack of Space.

Time; many different departments have info on exhibitions – there is no ONE spot to keep those records.

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the time to document a display properly. Other priorities can interfere.

Incomplete check lists.

Only real problem is having enough staff to process. Recent shows generate mounds of paper & much duplication that needs to be dealt with.

Documentation isn’t really hard – just a matter of saving the work that was done to create the show.

The usual: Staff time is limited, storage space, organization of material so it is inventoried and can be found.

More and more it is being done by contractors!

Time.

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We no longer have a photographer on staff (laid off in Jan.). Not clear who has responsibility for photo documenting – collections dept. has assumed responsibility for now.

Lack of space & staff time.

The fact that information funnels through so many people – you have to make certain that it all winds up in the archive. Not having the legacy information available for use. Especially regarding what has been on exhibit before and what types of security systems had been used in the past. Traffic flow patterns and design specifications play big roles in security testing and high security wiring of casework are always useful when planning for a new installation. Not having enough staff to monitor the area and work on the project always is difficult.

The only problem I would guess is space constraints

The information is not centralized – each department keeps its own records in its own way.

Lack of storage space.

Because of funding problems, we have lost our exhibit coordinator position. This means that different people “curate” each exhibit. As a result, some aspects of documentation are not always consistent.

Lack of staff time; lack of sufficient storage.

Staffing & document storage.

We have not organized an institutional archives to make retrieval of this data efficient.

Too many departments involved.

Digital file formats! Lack of consistency – each exhibit is different.

Storage space and ease of retrieval.

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Time, money, labor issues – never enough resources to really cull the files & keep only what we need, getting rid of extraneous materials. So we end up keeping everything. Sometimes this turns out to be a good thing, sometimes a pain in the ass. Our archives of printed/paper material are off-site and not always accessible. So older exhibitions (before 1992) that are not documented in digital format are harder to access.

Space constraints, time.

Storing physical elements like large graphics.

Lack of staffing, time, space.

Staff scheduling (note: this museum identified 10 separate people or departments that were responsible for documenting their exhibitions.) Sometimes the entire exhibit is not completely documented by photography and we have only key elements on paper. Documentation by some photographic method is helpful – but after a period you just cannot keep it all! Public info. officer keeps press materials; design is responsible for photos. exhibit elements, materials and may keep or dispose or recycle as necessary. No space to keep this with our aggressive exhibit schedule. Lack of storage space and little time to organize files in a consistent format. All departments have exhibition records for their area but there is no central area to combine all of the aspects of an exhibition. We present about 50 exhibitions per year. We’re onto the next one before we’ve had time to close the previous files.

Lack of storage space.

Continual administrative resources are needed, filing space is needed, image management is time consuming. Eventually would like to save all in digital format which = time + expense. (sic)

Lack of time; lack of staff and storage.

If someone wanted to go back and know details of an exhibition, s/he would have to go to 4 different places in which it’s archived.

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8. What has been your successes with documenting exhibitions? What methods or strategies have you found especially helpful and would recommend to other museums?

Binders of installation slides organized by year and by show – carefully labeled by interns; having interns spend time “weeding out” files – tossing duplicated info, or info that’s better archived on the computer.

Keeping all the loan paperwork and exhibit photographs.

Maintaining digital rather that analog archives has been efficient.

Exhibitions are quite well documented.

At the bare minimum, digital images of the installed show, with samples of all materials used. Overall, highly successful. Making everyone who has a hand in the exhibition process aware of the importance of documentation is the most successful strategy.

Hired a photographer to take photos.

I keep and record everything. NOT necessarily recommended.

We haven’t done, but would like time at the end to consolidate and organize exhibit elements for future use, ease of access/retrievability. We are generally very successful at storing the following: Electronic lists of final label/wall text copy and design & color specs for such; cad cam drawings of final floorplans; electronic lists of objects lists w/ images; final digital shots at completed installations.

Moving from slides of installations to digital photography.

We began entering all exhibition items onto a FileMaker database and when we upgraded our collection management software in 2003, this database was migrated to integrate with the collection management software. We can research by artist or title for any artwork ever displayed at the Art Center and cross-reference back to the exhibition. This helps tremendously with research.

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Keeping binders of everything, sorted by fiscal year, then by exhibition. allows us to quickly reference contracts, floorplans, gallery photography, etc. Keeping a current list of exhibits – with sponsors. 20 years after the fact we were able to exhibit a Kachina/Katsina collection and the owner was very impressed that we had kept so much documentation from the first show and the info was very useful. Photos / videos are fast and effective. All electronic files (scripts, interactives, etc.) are cut to CD.

Exhibition check lists.

Have a formal archives program with dedicated & trained staff. Success is level of value and use.

Computer files are burned to a laser disk after a show, digital photos can be included.

Photo documentation is easy & painless. We keep binders with the hard copies of material & digital files.

Digital camera & exhibition files.

Photo documenting exhibit items last summer really helped w/inventory projects. Each digital photo has the catalog number placed in it via Adobe Photoshop. Ensure enough staff make sure that you document all along the way through each phase of the exhibit, have a photographer there every day. Especially through installation and make sure that condition reporting and difficult installation pieces are photographed. You always have something to refer to in the end if you difficulty in remembering how to undo what you did six/eight months ago. Always talk with your people that are documenting and make sure that there is a strategy as to what they are “collecting” and to make sure that after the exhibit closes, they meet and gather all their information on the exhibit and sort the material out to find out what was relevant in order to archive and keep for future references. This should include your Registrar, Photo Archivist, Paper Archivist, Curatorial Liaison, Film/Video Archivist etc. Maybe some of the material would eventually go to your collections committee for inclusion you’re your collection, but this group should definitely weed things out first.

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Any suggestions would be welcome.

We use this documentation for records. Other elements on disc.

We would recommend making multiple backups of digital files. You never know when a computer will crash or a file may become corrupted. Taking good digital images of items before exhibition has been useful. Patrons often want photos of things on display. We’re able to loan a exhibit to another museum complete w/didactic material; provides good research material for curators.

Planning and communication in every step of the process.

Most fundamental task is to photo-document the completed installation.

We recently started new policy where I as Registrar gather all appropriate material (educational programs, PR releases, etc.) to put in final archived folder – each department is responsible to get material to me at the close of the show. (It) has worked better to have departments accountable to one person.

Throw away early drafts – only save final “as-builts”.

I would recommend photography of every installed exhibition, especially for traveling exhibitions. Documenting makes it easier to account for artifacts. Exhibitions (department) keeps three years of complete records at hand before sending to storage; copies of exhibition agreements are kept in separate file indefinitely. We write a post-mortem report for internal use, documenting what we think we did right or wrong, trying to be honest in that assessment. Then we write a “public” report for donors/trustees that gives attendance numbers, marketing impressions, etc. We use the post-mortems to inform future exhibit decisions, especially budget levels. Was this budget level sufficient for this exhibit or not? If not, why, and how to do better next time? This is the real value of exhibit evaluation.

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The internal website where all archived materials are posted makes it easy for all staff to access into when they need it without having to ask someone.

Re-use / recycle as much as possible.

Photography of exhibit.

Accurate artifact & case lists. Well-organized digital archives.

Entering exhibition contests helps ensure the completion of compiling data in a timely fashion. At present we use a team method for producing exhibits – copies of team leader’s documents including designer’s layout and registrar checklists are kept together in staff library/archives. Team leader’s notebook including text panels and labels, all go to staff library after the exhibit. Exhibit (or design) staff muse decide what to keep or toss – or recycle – of fabricated elements. 30 hours per month of volunteer time; use of summer interns; one database from start (calendar) to finish (archive list). We like to stay on top of the documentation so it does not pile up. Soon after exhibitions are defunct we go through a file clean-up process to save what we need, purge what is not needed. Central Exhibition file located in Registrar’s office which documents curatorial material, checklist, floorplan, crate lists, final reports, etc.

Take a ton of photos and try to have one person keep a complete file with script, object info, design and build info, and photos.

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9. Do you have any comments or other thoughts about documenting

exhibitions that you would like to add?

If it becomes part of the exhibition process, documentation is painless, efficient, and cost-effective.

It ought to be easier and more systematic.

A final goal of ours, although not yet realized, is to get better at doing final evaluations of an exhibition to determine ROI and pinpoint and document what worked and what didn’t. It is very important to future planning to have good records of what was done in the past!

Taking photographs is important. We did have a volunteer that would take photographs for us – so after we lost him we have fallen down on the job.

It’s extremely important for an institution to document its own history (particularly so for those of us who are in the history business).

Documentation of performance art & site-specific installations is difficult. I would like to see someone do a serious study & make recommendations.

We do have an occasional inquiry, where files have helped – artist’s estates.

With no photographer (photo archivist) on staff, hard to catalog.

Our institution keeps exhibition records for historical reasons, not for re-use of any elements.

Documentation has been done on a consistent basis over the last five (?) years or so for labels and images used.

I wish we would! This survey has brought our “negligence” to light, and I plan to suggest we institute such a mandate.

As we do so much on the computer now, it is easier to keep comprehensive records.

Just do it!

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We have few shared internal standards on documenting exhibitions. Each department saves materials it believes may be useful to keep around. And the level of documentation will vary with each exhibition and/or individual(s) involved. More information is better than less... barring duplications. Lack of space should never be the reason you discard elements from your archive. Every institution should document their exhibitions in some way. The visitor experience is difficult to capture much less preserve. I am interested in your research findings. It is important for every division of the museum to recognize the need to document each aspect of every exhibition.

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APPENDIX 3

Interviews Conducted

Aimee Brooks Registrar The Columbus Museum Columbus, GA John Chiodo Director of Design Academy Studios Novato, CA Allison Cummings Permanent Acquisitions San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Dianne Curry Curatorial Specialist, Rights & Reproduction, History Department Oakland Museum of California L. Thomas Frye Chief Curator Emeritus, History Department Oakland Museum of California Lisa Hancock Head Registrar Virginia Museum of Fine Art Richmond, VA Sellam Ismail Curator of Software Computer History Museum Mountain View, CA

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John Lawrence Director of Museum Programs The Historic New Orleans Collection New Orleans, LA Kate Morgan Collections Manager Strong Museum Rochester New York Anel Muller Media Collections Manager Computer History Museum Mountain View, CA Sam Quigley President, Museum Computer Network Director, Digital Information and Technology Harvard University Art Museums Cambridge, MA

Heather Sears Senior Assistant Registrar San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Marsha Semmel Director, Office of Strategic Partnerships Institute of Museum and Library Services Washington DC Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Mountain View, CA Mary Anne Staniszewski Author, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations

at the Museum of Modern Art Associate Professor of Electronic Arts History Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY

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Joy Tahan Registrar, Permanent Collections, Art Department Oakland Museum of California Karen Tsujimoto Senior Curator, Art Department, Oakland Museum of California

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PRODUCT

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Criteria Guide for Documenting Exhibition Resources

by Glen T. Myers ©

This Guide was designed as part of my Masters Project at John F. Kennedy University to help museum professionals determine which exhibit resources to document and what would be the best way to archive them. “Resources” here means any information or content that was created for an exhibition, but not the physical exhibit elements themselves.

The following suggestions differ from most exhibition archive lists in their breadth

of materials. It is recommended that a central location be established for all exhibit resources, rather than keeping the resources in the departments that created them. This is to encourage staff awareness of these assets so that they can be re-used in new ways.

This Criteria Guide goes beyond documenting the business of the exhibition to

include resources that document the content, design, and visitor experience as well. It is these resources that offer the best opportunities for repurposing (re-using in new ways) to expand the museum’s audiences and increase revenues.

There are two worksheets in this Guide, and you are encouraged to change or

customize them to fit your needs. Worksheet 1

This is a comprehensive list of possible exhibit resources that might be documented. These have been put in general functional categories, and many of the resources may be repeated other categories.

The next column allows you to identify the origin of each resource. For instance,

Loan Documentation might come from the Registrar, and Promotions might come from the Marketing Department. Brochures could come from either the Education/Programming or the Publicity Departments.

The last three columns identify whether the resource generally comes in

paper/analog format, digital format, or either formats. A simple check mark is all that is needed here. This will give you an overview of what and how much of the documentation originates in paper or digital formats so you can better manage your storage needs.

Worksheet 2

This helps you decide which format – paper / analog or digital – are best for archiving resources based on their function and the needs of the museum staff. A more complete description is at the beginning of the worksheet.

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Worksheet 1: List of Possible Exhibit Resources to Document

Resource Department or Origination

Paper or

Analog Format

Digital Format

Either Format

General: Correspondence Memos Contracts Invoices Loan Documentation Permissions & Copyrights Planning Records: Meeting Notes Correspondence Confidential: Insurance Records Correspondence Purchases Research: Used in Exhibit Related, but not Used Not Related

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Resource: Origin Paper Digital Either

Art & Artifacts (exhibited): Checklists & Images Condition Reports Conservation Records Registration Records

Publicity & Marketing Advertisements Press Releases Brochures Promotions Merchandising Catalogs Didactic Materials: Label Text Wall Text Videos/film Audio Tapes Interviews Curriculum Guides Programming & Events: Previews & Special Showings Classes, Lectures, Demos Partnering – Schools, Businesses Opening & Closing Events

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Resource: Origin Paper Digital Either

Design Records: Floorplans & Elevations Material Samples & Info Concept Renderings Visitor Experience Design Fabrication of Exhibit Elements: Designs & Diagrams Photos Costs / Invoices Installation of Exhibits: Slides / Photos / Videos Plans & Renderings Costs / Invoices Interactive Information Multimedia Information Computer Hard & Software Internet Links Website or Virtual Exhibit: Website Design Html resources Interactive Features Links Visitor Count

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Resource: Origin Paper Digital Either

Evaluation: Visitor Feedback Formative, Summative Results Attendance Records Traveling Exhibits & Venues: Itineraries & Schedules Venue Evaluations Exhibit Revisions & Modifications Visitor Experience: Video walk-throughs Visitor interviews 179

Worksheet 2: Recommended Format to Archive Exhibit Resources: Paper, Digital, or Either Notes: These recommendations are based on the inherent advantages of paper-based or digital information.106 These are broadly summarized as follows: Paper is useful for: Digital is useful for:

Collaboration (in person) with others Distributing information to group members Editing & revisions that do not replace the original text

Editing & revisions that do replace the original text

Careful reading & review Skimming and browsing

Maintaining privacy & privileged access Widely distributing to others

Work in progress or about to begin Completed work

Storing small amounts of information Storing large amounts of information

Preserving unique or important information Preserving generalized information Guaranteed longevity (in stable environment)

Searching among different kinds of materials (e.g., notes, records, books, brochures)

Comprehensive searching among similar materials (e.g. keyword search)

Linear organization of data, e.g., lists, indexes

Non-linear organization of data, e.g., hyperlinks

Reformatting data into new forms: audio/video, educational materials, website pages, etc.

There is no hard and fast rule for the best form to archive information. This table

shows how looking at the function of the information and the needs of the museum (or archives) can help determine which is the best form to use. Paper-based (or analog) information and digital data require different preservation approaches. A useful guiding principle to keep in mind is this:

Paper (and all physical objects) tends to endure for a long time, with slow

deterioration. Preservation of paper requires a stable environment. Digital assets (files, data, programs, databases) tend to become inaccessible

relatively quickly because the digital environment (software, computers, internet) is dynamic and changing.

Preservation of digital assets requires a proactive approach that includes refreshing storage media and migrating data to updated formats or programs.

106 A full discussion of these advantages are found in Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). 180

With these differences between paper-based and digital information in mind, the

following worksheet gives examples of how each exhibition resource might best be archived depending on its function or needs of the museum.

To use, match the specific resource listed in Worksheet 1 to the appropriate

function or need in Worksheet 2 and find the recommended format marked with an “X”. The column headed “Paper or Analog” includes any non-digital formats such as film, video & audio tapes, photographs or slides.

Once you have worked out a few of these tables, you can use the same approach for

long-term management of any information resource.

Example: The need for access of the Research resources (from Worksheet 1) used

in the exhibition can be ranked here as needing to be immediately accessible, to be needed in within the year, or not needed for years.

Each different ranking might suggest a different format to use for archiving. For example, digital files on a fileserver can be immediately accessed and copied, but paper files might not be so accessible.

If the research is probably not going to be needed for years, then paper files might be the best format to use. (Even if the information is currently in a digital file, it might be best to print out the file and archive it in paper form. Then you will not have to worry about migrating the digital files to upgraded software in order to keep them readable.)

Usage: Access duration Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Need immediately Need within a year Not needed for years

X

X

X

Revision & updating potential Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

High – work in progress Medium – work about to begin or just completed Low – Completed work

X

X

X

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Accessibility Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Broad public access Limited public access Broad internal access Limited internal access No access or very limited

X

X

X

X

X

Access distance Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Portable access (home, car, meetings) Access in office Access via computer

X

X

X

Search needs Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Immediate & exhaustive Keyword search Subject or author Alpha or numeric

X

X X

X

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Amount of information Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Large Medium Small

X

X

X

Relation to other data Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Physical attachment Cut & paste Merging Supplements Cross-Referencing Linking

X

X

X X

X

X

Navigation needs Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Quick & flexible Within single document Between documents Single activity (writing or editing) Multi-tasking (read, write, & edit)

X

X

X X

X

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Viewing needs Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Physical viewing (paper or photos) Analog (slides, tapes, video, film) Digital files

X X

X

Longevity needs Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Long-term & permanent Medium (a few years) Short-term

X

X

X

Possible future uses Paper

or Analog

Digital Either

Research Design Publicity or marketing Education or programming Record-keeping Grant writing Internet & website

X

X

X

X

X X X