Today I spent time finessing the displays in all the glass display cases for the Freeman exhibit and then writing text for labels that will go in a few of them. The display cases in the front will hold some of the "big ticket" items related to Freeman's relationship with Harold Washington. Most notably, the framed picture of Freeman and Washington at the swearing in of the Harold as mayor and relevant paperwork/correspondence. For the display case further into the archive that has early to mid-career Freeman ephemera, I wrote text that gives an overview in terms of timeline and accomplishments at different points in Freeman's life, but I also wrote text for labels for items that if you were looking at a thing and didn't know what it was, the label would tell you. Obviously not everything in the case requires labelling -- if you look at a newspaper and read the headline it's pretty obvious what it is and what you should be getting out of it. The next display case has Freeman's Illinois Supreme Court-related campaign materials and related objects. I'm making fewer labels for that case because it's pretty obvious what that stuff is; although he had a rich career before he was serving on that court, the Illinois Supreme Court is what he is mostly know for (in addition to his relationship with Harold Washington). Less explanation is necessary over there. Kheir and I talked about the flow of the exhibit and how people would encounter it, which meant rearranging angles of a few items. We also talked about that things could be in rough order and that it doesn't have to be exact in terms of the timeline. Aesthetics were the bigger concern which actually freed me up to play with it more. I appreciated this. It made it easier to finesse that display.
Earlier in the day we talked about the deed of gift versus tenure of things in the collection and how that differed depending on the item, as well as the importance of how considering those technicalities can affect the future of the collection. This is important to think about with things in an archive because there could be changes to the institution like staffing and so forth, and if things need to be returned there may need to be arrangement put into place, etc.
I also got a glimpse of the brochure that the design team put together for the exhibit (and to explain more about the Freeman collection in general in the archive). It was interesting to see how they laid out the photos and text we had worked on. The brochure is still in a draft stage but it is gratifying to see it all coming together. Later another member of the library staff came in and we showed her the display, which gave us a low-key dry run of how we would talk about not only the exhibit but also the Freeman collection in general.
 |
| exhibit in progress! |
Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Prof Gomez!
Delete