Exhibit Standards

Exhibits are great way for libraries to raise awareness about the gems in their collections.  An exhibit can showcase a little known collection of letters or highlight specific details within a well known story.

Exhibits can also be a lot of work, it is hard to pull together the right set of documents to tell a story and then write concise yet informative labels that bring everything together.  Displaying collections is also trickier than it seems.  You want to be certain that your exhibit area has good, stable environmental conditions in terms of temperature, relative humidity and lighting.  You want to be sure the cases seal so that the objects are free from dust and tampering.  There are a lot of details to address, but the good news is that there are standards available to help anyone involved in the exhibit process. 

The National Information Standards Organization publishes free technical leaflets, including "Environmental Conditions for Exhibiting Library & Archival Materials" [Z39.79-2001] which is available as a free, downloadable pdf. from their website.  The link to the pdf. is in the lower left corner of the linked NISO page.  These standards can be particularly useful for those who do not have a conservator or exhibits preparator on staff.

One commonly overlooked detail is a backing board for paper documents.  Many institutions re-use Plexiglas cradles from one exhibit to the next, and this makes a certain amount of sense as it eliminates waste and saves money.  Of course, paper documents come in many different sizes, so a cradle from a previous exhibit will often have to be modified.  Take a look at the picture below, and see how the document is taller and wider than the Plexiglas.  This may not seem like a significant amount, but this is 400 year old paper that has seen a bit of wear and tear over the years and if left on display without proper support, the letter could start to curl and droop over the edge of the Plexiglas cradle.  Why take that chance?

see how much the document hangs over on the left and at the top?

All that you need to do is take a piece of archival mat board and trim it so that it is just a few millimeters longer and wider than the original document, and then strap the document to it with polystrap so that it doesn't shift while you're opening and closing the exhibit case.  This is very easy to do and will make a tremendous difference in the long term preservation of your collections.

mat board trimmed to size

Chapter 8 of the NISO standard has all the basics for safe display of flat paper items, and the rest of the document has very useful information for bound volumes, lighting, etc.  So go ahead, check it out!

Qualifications of a Siberian Haridresser

This pamphlet was on exhibit for way too long.  Even with UV filtered light in the exhibit cases, paper documents can get bleached.  By "bleaching", I mean the yellowing apparent on the blank margin of the paper.  The white-ish stripe in the first printed column is where the Mylar strap held the pamphlet open and protected the paper from the light.  Not all of the items in the exhibit show this level of damage, so I'll be reviewing the lighting and other exhibit conditions that could be affecting this particular piece. 

Exhibits can be tricky.  They're a wonderful opportunity to showcase your collections, bringing out items that the average visitor to your institution may not know about and yet you are exposing your collections to potential damage that you may not be aware of until too late.

It's nice to have two

We have an exhibit on the 100th anniversary of Government Documents opening in October.  Gov Docs may not seem like a sensational topic, but we have a great collection of posters from World War I to put on display.  And while the images and design are amazing, the posters were not printed on the best paper and have suffered over the years. 

The poster on the right has some big pieces missing or detached, while the poster on the left has tears and plenty of masking tape residue on the back.  Right now, I'm thinking that the one on the left will turn out better, but it is nice to have two.