Science Museum Group changed offensive object tittle after getting my letter
here's the story about it:
Wonderful @solariium commissioned me wonderful victorian-era wheelchair user character to draw. Refs were provided, and one of the links was an object in online museum gallery - vintage wheelchair.
solariium, who is wheelchair user theirself, mentioned that tittle of the object is incorrect but it was good picture for the ref. i wondered "what's with the tittle?" looked in the link and saw
ID: screenshot of online museum collection, vintage old wheelchai object page. the tittle of wheelchair says: Invalid chair, Europe, 1850-1890. end ID
welp. incorrect indeed! [i* is outdated offensive term]
so i decided to make a special move
ID: my drawing of a character from anime "mob psycho 100" - Arataka Reigen. He holds a phone next to his ear, his face epression is very confident. It's all anime sparkles lights effects around him and text "REIGEN SPECIAL MOVE". end ID
and USE MY POWER
i don't have problems with writing emails, so i thought why not
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co120657/carved-wooden-wheelchair-europe-1850-1890-invalid-chair
ID: screenshot of online museum collection, vintage old wheelchai object page. the tittle of wheelchair says: Carved wooden wheelchair, Europe, 1850-1890. end ID
it worked!
As human who made bunch of projects, i can say that keeping museum gallery is tone of work.
And tittle change - no, it's not just changing few letters.
Changing tittle of object in museum is similar to changing name of game file. Catalogs changes, maybe they have irl gallery, so new card, they probably have some code objects system related to tittles, and scientists, students, make reference to this object in their researches and articles and etc etc.
So, yeah, it * is * a lot of work. Also, they changed description, it now says that this object was "historically referred to as ‘invalid chair’". And i think it's good, because it is not erasing fact of people used this word, and it's addition to the progress context - we literally see now old term clarified as past, and new one, now, in the tittle.
(and yes, web link. i just saw that i* word still there. yeah, not perfect but still, considering things i said above - big work done)
I used some conversation strategy in case "this is offensive can you fix" will not be enough — started on positive attitude giving compliment on their collection being big and interesting, gave them extra argument on why this should be fixed (more actual search key words on this now are "vintage wheelchair", not "i* chair"). Then we had a little letters chain, where they answered politely too, and in about few days i got detailed answer on this, and yep, changed tittle.
And i think this shows, that if someone did mistake and someone noticed it and giving feedback on it, if both sides are interested in progress and making good changes, no matter how hard it is, sides can make a change, working together and being kind. And i think we should be more brave about making such connections!
