The Curating & Exhibitions Interest Group hosted a two-hour Strategies for Exhibit Content Development webinar on Friday, May 10th, 2019 which went successfully. In addition to the CAA listserv, the event was promoted through other outside channels, such as the Chicago Museum Exhibitors Group (CMEG), RAILS and ILA Marketing Group, Chicago Hands-on Educators Group (CHOE), and direct emails. Twenty-five participants, including 12 CAA members and 13 non-members, attended to the webinar via Zoom. Based on the poll at the beginning of the webinar, half of the attendees was from libraries/archives, and another half was from museums.
The webinar was led by experienced exhibit developers, Tricia O’Connor and Charity Counts, with a focus of the processes, best practices, considerations, and tips in exhibit story development. Key areas that were covered in the webinar are ways of capturing the audiences, what science tells us about visitors that influence the exhibit design, tools and strategies on organizing content, writing labels, prototyping for best results, and recommendations on working and communicating with designers for building a strong collaboration for each exhibit projects. The webinar was concluded with a Q&A session, with questions from the attendees about the time needed for the planning, guidelines for exhibits on the web, and suggestions for creating interactive exhibits in small and open spaces and more. All participants receive templates and a list of resources developed by the facilitators.