Few Images, Rich Imagery: Creating ‘Patients, Practitioners, and Passing Legislation’

The New York State Society for Clinical Social Work Records.The New York State Society for Clinical Social Work Records is a collection rich with information. It is not, however, rich in images. This was one of the earliest details shared with me when I began working on its digital exhibit.

Few among us would dispute that exhibitions are a special species of outreach whose success tends to depend upon images. After all, they help sell the experience, working in tandem with words and other materials to create the immersive microcosm that is the exhibition. Color helps, but images are more explicit, especially in a digital exhibit, where virtual patrons might prefer them.

Initially, I thought the best way around this issue was to create an image of my own, a symbol composed of three circles or a spiral with three sections that would encapsulate the contents of the collection under three key themes. The circles were composed in Bootstrap, but the idea was doomed to fail as I was working too broadly. I had neither the subject knowledge nor the interest to summarize the collection in its entirety, and even if I did, it would not result in an engaging exhibit. Moreover, I was imposing my ideas on the collection, instead of becoming familiar with the collection’s unique merits. A second look at the collection’s finding aid revealed the New York State Society for Clinical Social Work (NYSSCSW) routinely published a newsletter most recently called The Clinician and had been doing so since the mid-1970s.

Periodicals are more likely to provide images, sure, and The Clinician did, but it also provided a better frame for the exhibition. I could focus on one aspect and connect it to the collection’s larger themes of independence, advocacy, and accessible mental healthcare. There would be items to read but not a wall of text to slog through. The pivot was complete in a week, and the circles were replaced by a rough web replica of the front page of The Clinician, complete with a menu structured like a table of contents. I had a title as well— “Patients, Practitioners, and Passing Legislation: Selections & Connections from ‘The Clinician’”.

The replica was refined over several months into its current state. As it stands, the exhibition is its own copy of The Clinician, an anthology of the newsletter not unlike an anniversary issue. However, where an anniversary issue might be more reflective, “Patients, Practitioners, and Passing Legislation” is an exploratory work. Visitors can pick their preferred theme and see its coverage over the years.

The selected articls are informative, but not lengthy, striking a perfect balance between quick browsing and invested reading. There are a variety of headlines to choose from, each touching upon a specific nuance within its assigned theme, be it money, technology, race, confidentiality, or work opportunities. One such example is “Retirement: The Prequel, or, Dead Therapist Walking”, found in the Practitioners page. In it, the personal and professional world of Christine MacDonald, LCSW intersect in a series of scenes that end in her and her spouse’s departure from New York City. Her prose is gentle and tender, meditating on beginnings as well as endings, inner conflict and the wisdom of experience. If there is only one article I can recommend from the entire exhibit, it is that one.

That being said, if one isn’t interested in the technical or professional aspects of being a clinical social worker, they can enjoy the sample of modern print history the newsletters provide, from the changes in formatting to the transition from typewriter to computer. For instance, the earliest newsletters did not contain images, but that changed within a single decade. In the following decade, the images were in color, a novelty turned standard as the society grew and printing technology advanced.