Bridging the gap between content and language

by Elyse Warren

In a world that is becoming ever more globalized, museums are grappling with how to bridge the gap between language and accessibility of their content. Whether it be labels or brochures about the objects, museums as a general collective are trying to adapt their approach to producing content to better meet the needs of new immigrants and English language learners.

Based on this, the J Paul Getty Museum produced a study on the role and effectiveness of their brochures for Spanish speaking audiences in 2008. In their evaluation, they found that the audience took only 10,350 brochures in Spanish compared to that of 30,712 in English. The researchers discovered that the Spanish speaking audience preferred to utilize the labels of the objects for information rather than the brochure. Interviews conducted in this study revealed as well that the Spanish speaking audiences would like to see the museum…