
Today is Ask a Curator day on Twitter.
It's a day where professionals from some of the most esteemed museums and galleries in the world get involved on social media and answer their patron's questions, using the hashtag #AskACurator.
It also gives other museums the chance to ask each other questions, which is exactly what happened on Wednesday morning.
The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences used the hashtag to ask how other museums make labels and descriptions accessible to visitors.
How do you go about designing exhibition labels and information that are accessible to a wider range of people? #AskACurator— MAAS (@MAAS) 1505280240
The British Museum answered, explaining that they aim to make descriptions as accessible as possible for all audiences.
They also added that they're careful not to use 'too many Asian names':
Jane, Keeper of Asia: Curators write the labels based on their specialist knowledge and they are edited by our Inte… https://t.co/QIvXO7MVKp— British Museum (@British Museum) 1505294066
... We aim to be understandable by 16 year olds. Sometimes Asian names can be confusing, so we have to be careful about using too many.— British Museum (@British Museum) 1505294190
The museum went on to explain...
E.g. the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy is known as Avalokitesvara in India, Guanyin in China, Kwanum in Korea and Kannon in Japan.— British Museum (@British Museum) 1505296603
Some people criticised the museum for their process:
@britishmuseum if you use more Asian names your visitors will get used to them. promise— soyrev (@soyrev) 1505295515
The museum later apologised for any offence caused by the tweets, and explained further:
Apologies, we would just like to add some further clarification here: https://t.co/t9xnJ8rJ3S— British Museum (@British Museum) 1505299730
The British Museum explained:
We would like to apologise for any offence caused. Jane was answering a very specific question about how we make the information on object labels accessible to a wider range of people. Label text for any object is necessarily limited and we try to tell the object’s story as well as include essential information about what it is and where it is from. We are not always able to reflect the complexity of different names for e.g. periods, rulers, gods in different languages and cultures on labels. This is explored in more depth through our public programme – tours, lectures, exhibitions, research projects, school sessions etc