When professor Sarah Norris started teaching at the School of Information in 2020, she based one of the first classes she taught on her own challenges in the field. Norris said she found librarians often lacked experience in exhibit creation, so she hopes she can prepare future librarians with the knowledge needed to create an engaging exhibit.
“If you work in libraries and archives, it’s more common that you’re working with self-directed researchers who are accessing your collections,” Norris said. “The idea behind this class is we can get the students some hands-on experience in developing an exhibit so that when they get out in their career, it’s not a new thing to them.”
Created by master’s students in the INF 386E: Planning/Understanding Exhibits class this semester, “All That Glitters” showcases the practice and preservation of hand tooling in embossing leather books with gold leaf. The class is holding a reception for their exhibit on Nov. 21 where students and experts can answer questions about the exhibit from visitors and perform demos of hand tooling.
Johnathan Leary, a first-year information studies student, said he discovered an appreciation for exhibit planning after taking this course.
“If you’ve done your job right, no one will realize that you did your job at all,” said Leary. “Going through a class like this, you start noticing those things no one else would notice. The little black triangle that’s trying to hide itself under a book and let you see the spine of it — you never notice that until you have to spend four hours throughout a week trying to piece one together yourself.”
Leary and a web design team created a digital exhibit for those unable to visit in person. Leary said the online exhibit attracted a new crowd to the physical exhibit that wanted to experience the extra level of detail that only the in-person exhibit could offer.
Kylie Burnham, also a first-year information studies student, said they feel bittersweet about the reception.
“(You get) to actually see your audience engage with the exhibit you’ve set up,” Burnham said. “Once the reception ends, the whole thing gets taken down. … We get to see the culmination of everything, and then immediately after, it’s all gone and done.”
Burnham said taking this course made them think more intensively about their future career path. Leary said that as an aspiring librarian, he believes the course will help him become better at his job through understanding the institutions he may work at in the future.
“Whether it’s libraries or archives, there tend to be exhibitions of some sort,” Leary said. “Understanding how all of this is done, I feel, has made me more of a considerate employee within the library space.”
Willem Borkgren, a second-year information studies student, said he valued seeing what goes on behind the scenes in exhibit planning.
“This is my first time putting an exhibit together,” Borkgren said. “I’d love to do it again. It’s fun to be able to share what makes you excited about a thing with other people.”
