{"id":1249,"date":"2019-09-20T12:31:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T12:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2019-09-20T12:31:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T12:31:18","slug":"time-changes-visitor-responses-to-the-growing-up-with-books-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/2019\/09\/20\/time-changes-visitor-responses-to-the-growing-up-with-books-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"‘time changes’: Visitor Responses to the ‘Growing Up with Books’ exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

SELCIE\u2019s first exhibition \u2018Growing up with Books\u2019 ran from June until December 2018 at the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh. It celebrated the culmination of SELCIE researchers\u2019 cataloguing and research work in the Museum of Childhood\u2019s book collection.<\/p>\n

We had been exploring the collection since 2016; reading everything from 17th century Latin grammar books to 20th century \u2018classics.\u2019 The collection is uniquely special in its representation of Scottish writers, publishers, and readers (evident in marginalia and book plates). In the exhibition we had the task of showcasing these strengths in the collection, and also communicating an engaging potted history of children\u2019s books in Scotland to a diverse museum audience. The exhibition was also accompanied by a range of interactive events for children and adults alike.<\/p>\n

Visitors were invited to give feedback on the exhibition via postcards. This blog post collates some of the visitor feedback; hopefully you find the responses as enlightening, touching, and funny as we do!<\/p>\n

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Naturally many of the feedback cards were populated with scribbles, doodles, and drawings. These can still provide insight into exhibition interpretation, such as this drawing of a school girl with the caption \u2018time changes\u2019.<\/p>\n

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It is clear that particular display cases had an effect on visitors – the fairy tale section was particularly popular. One postcard read: \u2018I like reading and writing and I love all sorts of fairy tales. This exhibition inspired me to take my old fairy tales books and read.\u2019 Another gestured to the display of scrapbooks and other examples of children\u2019s marginalia and manuscript culture: \u2018I love the scrapbooks thank you so much!\u2019<\/p>\n

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The historical books on display were favoured by some young visitors. Sienna Lamont, age 8, from Glasgow, wrote: \u2018I have lerned [sic] lots of history and I am only 8 years old and it [sic] so amazing.\u2019<\/p>\n

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One visitor wrote that they learned \u2018how small books were in olden days\u2019 and another observed that \u2018the old books are in such a good condition.\u2019 Ella commented that \u2018it was more fun then [sic] I thought it would be\u2019, which is a positive result!<\/p>\n

Some young visitors expressed that they had learned something from the exhibition. Constance commented that it was \u2018very intresting [sic] very educational.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Isabella, age 7, from Stranraer, wrote: \u2018This inspired me because I dident [sic] know the reading books where [sic] like that.\u2019 We think that in this drawing Isabella is recreating the colourful early nineteenth-century alphabet books which were on display.<\/p>\n

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Several postcards from older visitors suggested that the exhibition stirred up childhood memories for them. One visitor wrote: \u2018It was such a lovely time remembering about long forgotten times, I leave hear [sic] today remembering who I am, thank you.\u2019 We\u2019d love to hear more stories of childhood reading. You can share your memories with SELCIE via this link: https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/your-memories\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, we received the one critique which we had all feared:<\/p>\n

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This post written by Lois<\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SELCIE\u2019s first exhibition \u2018Growing up with Books\u2019 ran from June until December 2018 at the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh. It celebrated the culmination of SELCIE researchers\u2019 cataloguing and research work in the Museum of Childhood\u2019s book collection. We had … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boys","category-girls","category-education-learning","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1268,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}