Library Exhibits

One of my fellow librarians volunteered to plan an exhibit celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association. The posters are provided free from the Smithsonian (they created the designs and sent out copies) and we are responsible for displaying them and additional programming.

Suffice to say, this exhibit was one of those things that ends up being more work than you thought. I suggested involving our GIS program and little did I know, I was volunteering to help.

We were lucky to get an actual gallery (budget restraints meant they had to cancel the original exhibits), but the rest was difficult. We mounted the posters on foam board--easy, if low tech--but when it came time for the labels, the script we were given was a reiteration of captions on the posters themselves. The frugal person in me decided to let it be, but others decided to be more professional and have labels along side the posters. The gallery coordinator had volunteered to print them out, so I quickly did what I could given the label sizes specified and sent them over. Now I know why she just wanted to print them.

Then came the programming. I was all for inhouse speakers to give a talk or two to faculty, staff, and students for Professional Development credit. We have a GIS/GPS program so we had some folks who could talk about charts, and surveying, and equipment, and the like. Well, marketing got involved and suddenly we're involving the public. So, we added some folks from the county to talk about the history of the city and the tools and software they use. Scheduling was difficult because of July 4th, vacations, and wanting to be consistent, not to mention we were late getting started on scheduling for the public. In the end, we have two Lunch & Learns and two evening programs lined-up. I feel sorry for the speaker this Wednesday. The email announcements only went out today, so I imagine there won't be many in attendance.

I think, the next time I volunteer for something like this, I'll stick to making the brochures/programs, decorating the gallery (with fountains donated by me), and building the display in the Library's Lobby (which, didn't turn out as badly as I feared it would). I'll let the less introverted work with scheduling people for programming. I'm just not nagging enough to get people on the ball. My partner was able to do in two days what I had been unable to in two+ weeks. Although, I was in Second Life when someone from the GIS program strolled by and made the initial contact.

Personally, I think we're making this exhibit a far bigger event than it is. Labels for posters on foam board? Advertising on the college's main page? Programs printed on magazine stock by marketing (especially when marketing's idea for an arts leaflet meant dark brown text on black paper)? Maybe I'm too simple.

And the work is not done. I forgot to get a decent looking album for a guestbook, so I'll be doing that after work tonight.