As you may know, since the beginning of April there has been a new exhibit in the lobby of Langson Library, titled Costuming the Leading Ladies of Shakespeare. This exhibit should be up until September, so if you haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, you’ve still got loads of time! To read more about the exhibit in general, see the write-up in the Daily Pilot and the OC Weekly.
This blog post will explain a little bit about the exhibit and describe the process by which it came about. I have always been interested in library exhibits and the role of the librarian-as-curator, and I think it’s a discussion worth having with colleagues (the discussion, in this case, taking the form of a blog post).
If you’ve seen the exhibit (or simply the full title) you’ll know that the exhibit displays material relating to two broad them
es: (1) the actress Helena Modjeska, an Orange County resident and well-known actress from the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and (2) UCI productions of Shakespeare’s plays from throughout the history of the university, as well as costume designs from the UCI Drama Department.
The material displayed in the exhibit includes print books from the UCI Libraries’ circulating collections and Special Collections; archival material from a range of collections including several relating to Modjeska and several collections of emeritus UCI Faculty papers; and material generously loaned to the library by the Drama Department and by UCI students and faculty. We thought that displaying a wide range of material helps to illustrate the breadth and depth of UCI Libraries collections, and firmly positions the library at the center of the campus intellectual and research activities.
Which brings me to talking a bit about the role of a librarian curator. In the case of this exhibit, neither curator has any specialist knowledge about the subject matter… and neither of us claims to! Instead, we both saw our curatorial roles as highlighting library collections, showing them to patrons, and to an extent, simply saying “Hey! Did you know the library has stuff like this?” Speaking for myself here, I am absolutely not a scholar-librarian!
I think that librarians have always had difficulty when acting as curators in knowing where the line is between interpreting information (which is really what an exhibit does), and assisting with finding and accessing knowledge. We are very comfortable telling library patrons how to access information, but I think that we are much less comfortable using that information to tell a story.
See, for instance the following two articles (this isn’t a full literature review because… this is a blog post!):
- Making an Exhibition of Ourselves? Academic Libraries and Exhibitions Today By:Fouracre, D (Fouracre, Dorothy) JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIANSHIP Volume: 41 Issue: 4 Pages: 377-385 DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2015.05.008
There are a couple of pertinent aspects covered in this article, which examines the exhibits policies of several large (British) libraries. In particular, I want to draw your attention to the section (Libraries and Museums) at the end, where the author talks about the differences between librarian and curator education. I found particularly compelling the following, from Katie Birkwood of the Royal College of Physicians, who says: “Museums cataloging is different… you write a little bit about what this thing is and why it’s important, and with book cataloging you don’t…”
As a cataloger, I always try and say as little as possible about the books I encounter. We always use neutral words when creating catalog records, and even when describing resources to library patrons I’d generally try to leave interpretation up to somebody else. This is something I struggled with in curating the exhibit. My instinct (both professional and personal) is simply to present something, not to interpret it. I want to give people the tools to do their own interpretation. But that’s not really the role of an exhibit. - EXHIBITS – ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN OF ACADEMIC-LIBRARIES By:BOWEN, LG (BOWEN, LG); ROBERTS, PJ (ROBERTS, PJ) COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES Volume: 54 Issue: 5 Pages: 407-415 DOI: 10.5860/crl_54_05_407
This article compares the process of creating library exhibits to the process of writing an academic article. I’d in general agree—I think based on the research I did for the exhibit, I’d be relatively comfortable writing a short article or research note on the subject of Helena Modjeska and her role in Orange County (there’s not much call for such an article, thankfully!). In essence, the article argues that library exhibits are part of the library’s intellectual output, and the article concludes (making reference to its title) that “exhibits may be children that academic libraries have adopted from museums, but it is time to welcome them as an integral part of the family.”
Also, I read the book ‘Great exhibits! An exhibit planning and construction handbook for small museums’. This was really helpful to me—I frequently visit art galleries and museums, but I have to say that I (perhaps shamefully?) err towards visiting the large and well-endowed, rather than the smaller institution that is more likely to put on an exhibit of our caliber. This was a helpful book for me, both in terms of conceptualizing the framework of the exhibit, and in terms of understanding the constraints of what is possible.
Why have I published this on the No Shelf Required (né Learning Libraries) blog? Well, for several reasons. First, I am constantly surprised by how much is happening in my workplace and I have no idea that it’s going on—I hope that this provides a bit more information about the thought process that went into creating this exhibit. Second, I am currently a member of the LAUC-I working group on Highlighting Librarian Achievement. It would seem to be a bit hypocritical if I hadn’t talked about this exhibit in some forum or other. So, with respect to the latter point, I’d be interested to hear from you: do you think we should do more of this stuff (blogging about what we’re doing)?
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