| Exhibitions represent the public face of museums and their collections, and whilst other forms of 'virtual' museum outreach may now reach a greater number of people via the internet, it is the opportunity to see 'real' museum objects 'in the flesh' that still rewards the visitor to the museum.
The web use statistics for The Natural History Museum show that many more people visit it's web site than visit the museum itself. Presentations at this web site allow you to look at some parts of the nhm collections in great detail, at least as much as you would see in 'the flesh'. Yet with the advent of free admission at the end of last year, visitor numbers to the museum quadrupled. People still like to visit 'real' exhibitions in whatever form these may take, but what is unique about museum exhibitions are their collections of objects on display.
The work required to present objects for display has come a long way from daylight filled galleries and stretched hessian backboards. And while modern conservation techniques are helping preserve museum's collections around the world, sometimes the objects on display may be overlooked.
In Giles Verarde's book, Designing Exhibitions he refers to display design as 'point of sale design' and considers it the 'little sister' of exhibition design. [source] Even in the 14 years since this books publication, the recognition that conservation conditions must extend to exhibits whilst on display is creating challenges to for those charged with this display.
The purpose of this document is to present an introduction to the technicalities in displaying museum objects
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