Archival Anecdotes: From the darkest corners of the museum...

From time to time, someone will ask me if the museum is haunted. My first reaction is to laugh. My second reaction is to tell the truth and say, "I never been there after dark, so I have no reason to believe so."

The truth is, some of the artifacts within the museum do haunt me. There are items that sit in the darkest corners of the museum and offer little in terms of didactic value.

In lay terms­- these artifacts do very little to earn their keep. Their labels are simple and provide only the most basic facts, if that. They offer very little opportunity to engage, explore or educate.

In the world of museum displays, these items are known as "tombstones." With any luck, their label identifies the artifact and its source (or provenance). From there, it's up to museum staff to make items interesting to a potential audience.

Building an interpretive story often begins with researching the item's origin and use. The first thing I do is look for a maker's mark or patent number. Sometimes the material can give clues to the item's history.

Aggregating similar items can also help breath life into otherwise dead ends. The 14-inch scythe with a wooden handle, featured below left, has no individual context. However, when paired with other hand tools for agriculture, this single artifact becomes part of a larger story about developments in agricultural technology.

Some artifacts, such as the ammonia gas mask pictured below right, are exciting enough in their own right to pull at our natural curiosity. Still, it would be even more exciting to know how this mask could have been used. Until then we must rely on our imagination to speculate.

It's the larger story (not the artifacts or their labels) that influence an exhibit.