DOI's 50th Anniversary Exhibition

I refer to the letter by Denis C. Mifsud entitled 50th Anniversary Exhibition (October 15) and would like to thank Mr Mifsud for his positive comments about the exhibition.

Regarding the captions beneath the displayed photos, I must admit that the question of which language was to be used presented a real dilemma.

On one hand we anticipated that using the Maltese language would be a handicap to foreigners.

On the other hand however, given that the Department of Information is the official spokesman of the Government of Malta, we thought it might be anomalous to use the English language.

At one time we were even considering displaying the captions in both languages but were advised that such an option would aesthetically mar the overall layout and display.

Ultimately we had to make a choice and the choice fell on the Maltese language as the national language of Malta.

In a final bid to mitigate the problem faced by visiting foreigners, though admittedly not the ideal solution, we inserted a very short English version bracketed at the end of a number of captions, especially in the case where the photo displayed did not actually tell the story.

As to the exhibition catalogue, which incidentally is now available on the DOI website www.doi.gov.mt, we intend to produce and publish online an English version of all the captions, after CHOGM is over.