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While seconding Mr. Katzman's comments, here's a different perspective:
As a museum visitor and a habitually voracious consumer of text,  
limitless labels can be discouraging; I can never be sure I get the  
whole story.  The possibilities become a distraction.  I find myself  
laboriously exploring the entire hypertext web, as during a recent  
visit to the Dallas World Aquarium, clicking back and forth to make  
sure I "got" everything.

The pay-off is questionable.  Maybe it's a personal problem.  I do,  
afterall, have a bookmark folder full of unfinished wikipedia  
threads.  (Nerd.)

All this to say, there's something comforting about limits.  There is  
a virtue in open-endedness but there is also a virtue in expressed,  
finite intent.  We sometimes like to think of exhibitions as stories,  
which arguably has more creative potential than thinking of an  
exhibition as an encyclopedia.
If a scholar I chose to be, I can return to the office, the library,  
or borrow my friend's iPhone, and explore endless footnotes and  
hypertext on my own (and my friend's network) time.

Following many discussions on this topic at the Hands-On some years  
back, I came away with three utilities for which electronic labels  
could be useful:

1. Translation.  It's a rabbit hole.  Spanish makes a lot of sense  
nowadays, but as soon as we include a third language, the entire  
venture becomes an excercise in ommision.  We can translate to  
Mandarin, but the Hmong in the community are going to wonder why  
there is no translation for them, too.  With enough harddrive space  
and credible volunteer translators, this problem might...might... be  
navigatable.  (I can hear Mr. Siegel chuckling all the way from  
Queens...)

2. FAQ.  I've never witnessed one in practice, but an exhibit FAQ  
would be really interesting.  We all know of exhibits that generate  
frequent questions that have little to do with the intented story of  
an exhibit.  "Is the skeleton real?"

3. Reconfigurable exhibits.  Whereby, for example, the Energy  
Gallery, the Plumbing Exhibit, and the Nature Room can all be  
switched into a cohesive "Sustainability" exposition for a particular  
group or program.  Very cool idea.
Alternatively, a fellow from AMNH mentioned "static paper" labels at  
AAM, which sounds not only magical, but a great deal cheaper than a  
vast network of computers, if temporary signage is all one is after.

Finally, you know, the renovated Liberty Science Center has almost as  
many flat screen monitor labels as San Antonio's got taco trucks.   
The Tech, too, right?  Maybe they'll do a session for us one of these  
years.  I'll bring the tacos.

--Jason

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