Bailey LittleWalk through any arboretum, and you will find signs that guide your experience, naming plants, offering insights into the ecosystem’s role, or even helping you find your way around. However, many signs fall short of connecting with visitors or sparking a deeper understanding.
My name is Bailey Little, and I study Environmental and Sustainability Studies and English. I am currently developing an inventory for the signage at The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky.
A survey run before the pandemic revealed that the signs around The Arboretum were being read; however, they struggled to meet The Arboretum’s educational goals. Rewriting the signs around The Arboretum to better reflect The Arboretum’s mission is a big task.
Enter my project – creating an inventory including every sign around The Arboretum. Being able to reliably locate every sign along with their content, size, visibility, and condition is a first step toward identifying the signs that fail to connect with visitors and changing them as needed to meet The Arboretum’s educational goals.
This project lays the foundation for effective education at the Arboretum. While signage may seem like a small detail, it plays a crucial role in shaping how visitors engage with plants, landscapes, and ecological concepts.
The first half of the summer has focused on laying the groundwork for collecting signage data and organizing it into a structured system. This has involved my mentor and me meeting with arboretum staff to understand the existing informational infrastructure, determine how best to integrate large amounts of data into current systems, and identify potential methods for data collection.
We will be using Iris BG, a collection management platform for botanical collections, to house the data collected throughout the research. ArcGIS, a mapping software, will be used to capture the geographic location of each sign, along with information including sign content, size, visibility, and condition. We will be able to export data from ArcGIS to Iris BG relatively easily.
After the completion of the inventory, my mentor and I will run a survey to collect information on The Arboretum’s visitors’ preferences and understanding of the current signage to guide future projects overhauling arboretum signage to reflect the needs of The Arboretum.
The Arboretum is like a living museum for plants native to Kentucky, and helping visitors understand what that means can foster a deeper connection with the landscape, one that encourages further education on local biodiversity, conservation, and the role humans play in sustaining healthy ecosystems.
Creating a comprehensive inventory and evaluating how signage aligns with The Arboretum’s educational goals supports a long-term vision of more meaningful, accessible, and impactful communication.
Environmental literacy is more important than ever, and ensuring that every sign effectively communicates its content can help deepen the public’s understanding of the environment at large.
