Keeping up with best practices: Library exhibitions at a university library in a small island developing state

Abstract

Libraries over the years have developed best practices for planning, organising, promoting and evaluating exhibitions. Many are based on practices in museums. These best practices have been written into policies and shared with libraries worldwide. However, just as there has been an acknowledgement that some museum practices must be modified to suit the needs of libraries, the same applies to exhibition best practices across countries and libraries with different budgets. Small island developing states are particularly challenged by, among other things, limited resources, high cost of transportation and energy and vulnerability to natural disasters, which can have a direct or indirect impact on libraries and their ability to carry out functions like curating exhibitions. The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Library, located on the island of Jamaica and founded in 1948, has a long tradition of curating exhibitions. Planning and executing physical exhibitions at The UWI are guided by Library-adapted policies and guides, recently formalised in an exhibition policy. A review of some of the exhibitions curated by The UWI Mona show that the physical exhibits are, for the most part, executed in keeping with international best practices, but the Library has had to make adjustments primarily because of financial challenges. These financial challenges affect the availability of resources for exhibits, exhibition space, dedicated exhibition staff, how special collections items are used and the magnitude of exhibitions mounted. Exhibition reports, annual reports, photographs and visitor comments books reveal that the Library attempts to follow best practices with regards to planning, designing, executing and evaluating physical exhibitions. On the other hand, the Library is in the early stages of converting its physical exhibitions to digital formats but may have to establish more formal guidelines to ensure that online exhibitions are planned, designed and evaluated in keeping with international best practices to be successful. Successful exhibitions not only satisfy Library organisers and ‘edutain’ users but also build a good reputation for the Library and lead to further collaboration with faculty and benefit students, administrators and sometimes the general public. These practices at The UWI that are guided by policies can serve as an example to other institutions with small budgets on how to successfully plan and deliver physical exhibitions and build relationships with faculty and the wider community. The Library would need to ensure that formal guidelines and practices are followed for online exhibitions to be as effective and successful.