Offhand Comments

Margaret Dieter Robins

Another good week and I have learned a lot about writing for the public at a museum. Almost everything that I have written in my return to school has been an analysis or a summary. In both, I have been presenting an argument and providing evidence to substantiate my points in the paper. Writing for the museum is a challenge in that I am providing information but avoiding anything that may sound like an opinion while still being able to factually tell the story. It's not so easy. However, I am learning the process which for me has been writing an analysis then rewriting it three or four times until I have gotten all my opinions out of the text. Not the most efficient, but it's working. I have been getting a lot of great feedback and guidance from the staff. The site manager has been great to work with. He has given all kinds of rope to work on projects with and so he has kept me from hanging myself, but we are only halfway through the summer so there is still time.  

This week I have been continuing my work on more graphics for the self-guided tours. I have turned in the prototype for Raymond Robins and The Red Cross. I expect to get feedback from Tampa this weekend. I am a bit behind this week. I have been finishing up papers for another history class I took this summer which has taken up most of my time. However, I have the basic layout together and mostly finished. I am not super thrilled with the photos, but they will work until I have a chance to look at the stock pill the history site has. I will work on the dialog tomorrow night. I am saving the exciting stuff for Friday evening.  

The poster project was unexpected, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to work on it. It started because I had made an off had commented on the lack of information of Raymond Robins time in Russia and said something along the lines it would be nice to have a poster or something to talk about in the room that holds those artifacts. Surprisingly the response I got was “yep it would put something together and I will talk with the curators.” Their response was “sounds like a good idea for the self-guided tours put something together. ” Never underestimate the power of offhand comments.