On Crediblity
Feb. 21st, 2011 03:51 pmToday I finally went into to look at the museum's Tasmanian Connections Gallery (which is the new central gallery with everything in it including dinosaurs, native fauna, Sydney Cove wreck, Beattie Colleciotn, but I guess you don't know about that).
Now I often go and visit museums in place -- small community museums, big city museums -- and I look at the displays and read the accompanying labels, because they're a useful resources of information: reliable, accurate, put together by people who know the subject matter; and if something there contradicts something I thought I knew, then probably I'm wrong.
You can probably guess the next bit :)
Looking at labels and information panels today, I found I was thinking "That is probably right but I'd want to check it before relying on it" or "I don't think that's right at all." Because I know some of the people who were responsible for producing that information, and the process it goes through, so I know it's fallible, and of course resaerch is only as accurate as the available sources (not making any references to any stories about notices stuck on inn doors there). And it doesn't help that I've worked with some of the objects so I know something about them (which doesn't always match what's one their labels).
It's not that I think they don't know what they're talking about -- these are people whose knowledge and epxerience I respect and often make use of -- but I'm aware of the potential for errors to creep in.
But mostly, it's odd how I give more credibilty to unknown people in an unknown institution than those I known for years.
Now I often go and visit museums in place -- small community museums, big city museums -- and I look at the displays and read the accompanying labels, because they're a useful resources of information: reliable, accurate, put together by people who know the subject matter; and if something there contradicts something I thought I knew, then probably I'm wrong.
You can probably guess the next bit :)
Looking at labels and information panels today, I found I was thinking "That is probably right but I'd want to check it before relying on it" or "I don't think that's right at all." Because I know some of the people who were responsible for producing that information, and the process it goes through, so I know it's fallible, and of course resaerch is only as accurate as the available sources (not making any references to any stories about notices stuck on inn doors there). And it doesn't help that I've worked with some of the objects so I know something about them (which doesn't always match what's one their labels).
It's not that I think they don't know what they're talking about -- these are people whose knowledge and epxerience I respect and often make use of -- but I'm aware of the potential for errors to creep in.
But mostly, it's odd how I give more credibilty to unknown people in an unknown institution than those I known for years.
