An exhibition is worth a thousand papers? : Exhibitions as science communication in university libraries: methods, attitudes, effectiveness

This thesis presents a study on how four Swedish university libraries use exhibitions as a tool for science communication. I describe the methodology of the exhibitions, how they differ between libraries, and how working with the exhibitions is experienced by the librarians and researchers involved. A smaller part of the study describes how the exhibitions have been made visible online and in social media. All the exhibitions have used a modified version of the five-step model created by Forskarnas Galleri at Malmö University. The exhibitions use a mix of media and tools to present the research. The exhibition experience has happened both synchronously and diachronously, i.e., the visitor has taken part of the knowledge both by visiting the exhibition and by taking part of the literature presented afterwards. Except for during the vernissage, the visitors have experienced the knowledge transfer through indirect mediation, as neither librarians nor researches have been present as permanent guides at the exhibition site during its tenure. Both librarians and researchers agree in their view that the universities see the exhibitions as something positive and worthwhile, and both groups see them as something positive for them personally. The librarians were more unanimously positive to using a more image-based language, while the researchers varied in their responses. Some were more apprehensive and worried that their research message would be altered if it was simplified. Both librarians and researchers expressed that they would have liked to do more with the exhibitions, for instance using them as backdrop for lectures or doing tours. There was a consensus between both groups that it was very hard to assess how many people had visited the exhibition, and what the visitor's view of the exhibitions were. The exhibitions were all visible online and in social media to some extent, but the results varied greatly with some exhibitions being very visible while others barely showed up. Overall, the bibliographic footprint of the exhibition was small, with no traces in an altmetric analysis and only half of the exhibitions being published as 'artistic output' in an open archive. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.