Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  1 

Running Head: ISSUES IN EXHIBITION CATALOGUE CREATION

Client Diagnosis:

Issues in Exhibition Catalogue Creation and Historical Use of Pedestals

Jennifer Dibbern

Emporia State University

 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  2 

Abstract

This paper surveys the processes involved in diagnosing information user needs

in a researcher/client-based scenario. The primary format in which the

information diagnosis is reached is based on Robert Grover’s model for

diagnosing client information needs. The Gallery Director at the Rocky Mountain

College of Art and Design, Cortney Lane Stell, was interviewed to determine her

information needs. The client interview, diagnosis of her specific reference

needs, prescription and results of the information search are explained.

 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  3 

A patron enters a dimly lit gallery where they are greeted by a large

spherical object resting on what seems to be analogous to a pedestal. They

could be thinking many different things about their own interpretations of what

that object is supposed to be or represent. The gallery director has chosen that

specific object for a reason and placed it in a gallery with other objects that are

supposed to be viewed with it. The viewers may or may not know this and are

free to build their own opinions. For the situation where the viewer would like

clarification of what they see in front of them, there is usually an exhibition

catalogue to “present a more detailed description of the exhibitions main

themes”(Rouette, 2007).

The curator or gallery director creates the exhibition catalogue and there

are many things to be considered when creating a catalogue. Specific things to

consider when creating a catalogue include cost, it’s effectiveness as a method

of interpretation and the audience being targeted by the catalogue (Rouette,

2007). The gallery director of Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design,

Cortney Lane Stell, is in the process of making her first exhibition catalogue.

Over the past few months Ms. Stell has been collecting information on an Italian

artist that she will be featuring in her next visiting artist exhibition.

Ms. Stell was approached out of curiosity and was asked about her

general information needs as a gallery director. She described her day-to-day

professional activities including a general job description. When she was told

that there was a researcher there to help with her information needs, Ms. Stell

began to describe the exhibition catalogue and various information needs

 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  4 

surrounding its creation. After discussing those main information needs it was

concluded that the most helpful research would be focused on how an exhibition

catalogue was created and some historical research on an assortment of

sculptural elements. Using Robert Grover’s model for diagnosing information

needs, a number of information sources were found to assist Cortney Stell in the

creation of an exhibition catalogue. The following paragraphs describe the

process adhering to Grover’s model for assisting individuals, including diagnosis,

prescription, treatment and evaluation (Grover, 1993).

When diagnosing information needs, the role of the professional needs to

be established before any other aspects of the information search process can

be conducted (Grover & Carabell, 1995). In this case Cortney Lane Stell is a

friend of the researcher. This affects the professional/client relationship and the

information need is familiar. The process in which the diagnosis is found and the

information is presented is more personal and the entire process is more

dynamic from the beginning.

It is important to keep the client involved in the information search process

so they can become more familiar with the process. The client’s involvement

during the process eliminates the “Fast Food” professional/client relationship. In

other words it moves the relationship from the client ordering and then receiving

information sources that may not be specific enough to the clients needs, to a

situation where the client and professional can work together to find specific

information. This also teaches and empowers the client to use other information

sources than ones they would normally use. For example, when Ms. Stell was
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  5 

asked what sources she was using to conduct her research, she replied with

“Google and the library here on campus. And, sometimes I use Jstor.” One

issue that came up was the fact that the Rocky Mountain College of Art and

Design is a private college and has to pay for most of it’s database access.

Because the college has to pay for subscriptions, they have access very few.

Through the process of the interview, two things were made very clear and were

set into a plan: Cortney Lane Stell needed research on creation of a catalogue

and assistance in finding more information resources. It was also clear that the

client preferred to do most of her research from her desk and a library that was

within walking distance.

The client’s diagnosis is as follows: there is a need to create a catalogue

for a small gallery that primarily caters to art students, professors and other

academia. The information sources that are found need to be accessed either

via computer or inter library loan to her library. Database use is limited because

the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design is a private institution. Also, the

client is a visual learner.

Since the client is a visual learner, information search sessions have been

pre-arranged on a weekly basis. During the information search sessions the

researcher and client sit together and conduct research. The researcher

prepares conducts some research before she arrives at Ms. Stells office. The

pre-research is done primarily to begin the sessions on solid footing. For

example, in searching for information on the history of pedestals, a surprisingly

hard subject to research, the professional prepared a list of sites and sources
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  6 

that she knew produced a viable outcome, information wise. During the session,

Ms. Stell was shown how easily she could access online databases other than

Google.

Knowing that the professional is currently in school for a masters in library

science, the client asked if there any readings on searching could be

recommended. To assist in teaching the client to do some searching out-of-the-

box, two articles were recommended to her. The first article suggested was

Tools Every Searcher Should Know and Use by Suzanne Bell. This article in

particular was suggested primarily to help the client understand Boolean logic

when it comes to searching for information (Bell, 2007). It is very important for

the client to understand Boolean logic, especially when they prefer to conduct

searches on their own, because a variety of search engines like Google use it.

The second source that was suggested was Choosing the Right Resource

for the Question out of the Librarian’s Guide to Online Searching. This source

was chosen primarily because it gives informative guidance on aspects of online

searching, specifically if you are part of an institution that has little or no access

to databases (Bell, 2009). It also covers aspects of online searching tools like

Boolean, ways to choose the correct databases, and examples of using the web

for searching professionally.

Since the client Cortney Stell was becoming more comfortable with doing

some of her own searching on databases other than Google, the next step was

to begin searching for information on the pedestal and it’s use historically. Ms.

Stell had mentioned that she was having a hard time finding information on the
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  7 

symbolic meaning of the pedestal, the history of the pedestal and even the use of

the term pedestal in journals and books. She was searching for pedestal

information because one of the objects that she is bringing in for the exhibit has a

pedestal-like form holding up what looks like a decaying spherical object (see

Figure 1). She would like to include a conversation about the historical and

symbolic uses of pedestals in her exhibition catalogue. The search for the

pedestal was a researchers dream challenge, or was it? Ms. Stell had already

tried to find information on pedestals in Jstor, the researchers first choice in the

searching for pedestal information, with no results. The next logical step was to

go bigger by searching databases like Wilson Web and EBSCO.

Wilson Web is always a good choice for database searching. It has a very

user-centered format that is very self-explanatory. It allows the user to enter

keywords into three different fields. This database is perfect for a user like

Cortney Lane Stell, who does most of her searching by plugging keywords into

Google. By entering pedestal, art and history, a number of sources appear.

However, the majority of them are in Italian and German. When these articles

were mentioned to Cortney she chose to use them. Since she is working with an

Italian artist, she has a translator. Also, the researcher knows someone who can

translate German so those articles can be accessed. If the search process were

focused on a different client, the articles in foreign languages would most

certainly be excluded. Other than those articles on pedestals as object, many

results were articles on the pedestal as symbolic object. For example, there was

an article on woman’s rights and activism that contained the word pedestal, but
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  8 

was using it in a symbolic sense. Other keywords that helped in the search

process were Italian revival and decorative architecture.

The next two databases used were EBSCO and WorldCat. WorldCat is a

very useful database. It allows the user to enter three keywords and also allows

the user to choose the specific type of source they may want to use (i.e. books,

visual materials, internet resources, maps, etc.). WorldCat also brought retrieved

many sources but none of them contained information on the historical use of the

pedestal. EBSCOhost was the hardest to use, because with a topic that is hard

to research, like pedestals, there is no place to use a keyword. The search page

for EBSCOhost only allows the user to enter a title, author or text. The text field

is similar to a keyword search, however it is not clear in the results as to where

the text appears.

One very helpful source that was recommended to the client was

ProQuest Library Services. It has systems focused on academic libraries and

specific searches on art that might yield more comprehensive searches than the

other databases. The only drawback being that the user has to pay for service.

Courtney has mentioned the purchase to the librarian and she has yet to hear

back about the service. Out of the three weeks of searching for two days each

week, the information resource yield was two articles that mentioned pedestals.

The first source was a one-page article titled International Foundation of Art

Research that just briefly touched on pedestals (Lydiate, 2009). And, the second

source was a relatively detailed article titled The pedestal and the pendulum: fine

art practice, research and doctorates (Mottram & Rust, 2008). The two articles
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  9 

not only touched on pedestals in the actual object sense and the symbolic sense,

they also spoke about research in the art world.

Cortney Lane Stell has been doing some research on her own to learn

how to research for and write and exhibition catalogue for the Maria Christina

Carlini exhibit she will be showing in the spring. Since the researcher has been

spending most of her time on the pedestal, the research on catalogue writing has

fallen to the client. The client has done a perfect job so far conducting her own

research outside of Google and has acquired similar exhibition catalogues to use

as guides.

Also, it was suggested by the professional that the client arrange an

appointment with Douglas Wagner, the Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the

Denver Art Museum. He has spent the past three years writing catalogues for

the department and would be a unique resource in learning how to prepare an

exhibition catalogue. Ms. Stell has agreed that he would be a good source to

use and has scheduled an appointment. The search for information on designing

an exhibition catalogue is ongoing at this point in the process to allow for more

time in researching the historical value of pedestals.

In interviewing Cortney Lane Stell in follow-up, it was found that the client

and researcher are pleased with the process thus far. The client had hoped to

find more information on pedestals since they appear in all of the pieces that will

be feature in the exhibit. However, the search has not ended. The information

search process has just begun and will not end until the catalogue is complete.

Even when the catalogue has been written, viewed and discarded, and the
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  10 

exhibition has been taken down, the search will continue. Ms. Stell was very

pleased to have been presented information on different ways to search for

information and new tools to assist her research in the future. For now, the

search for information on the pedestal is ongoing because there is more

information on their historical use out there somewhere and it will be found.
 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  11 

Figure 1. This is a photograph of Madre by Maria Christina Carlini. It was

photographed by Anita Silva and is posted on the webpage www.abitare.it.

 Client Diagnosis: Exhibition Catalogue  12 

References

Bell, S. (2009) Librarian’s guide to online searching. Santa Barbara: Libraries

Unlimited.

Bell, S. (2007) Tools every searcher should know and use. Online, Sept/Oct, 22-

27.

Grover, R. (1993). A proposed model for diagnosing information needs. SLMQ

21(2).

Grover, R., Carabell, J. Towards better information service: diagnosing

information needs. Special Libraries Association, winter, 1-10.

Lydiate, H. (2009). International foundation for Art Research: IFAR. Art, 327.

Mottram, J., Rust, C. (2008). The pedestal and the pendulum: fine art practice,

research and doctorates. Journal of Visual Arts Practice, 7(2), 133-151.

Rouette, G. (2007). Exhibitions: a practical guide for small museums and

galleries. Victoria, Australia: Museums Australia.

Silva, A. (2009, September 17). Maria christina carlini. Abitare. Retrieved

October 20, 2009, from http://www.abitare.it/highlights/maria-cristina-

carlini/.