All About Museums
He was the Dundee ‘clippie’ whose dedication and loyalty earned him the moniker of ‘Mr Transport’.
Charles Broadley’s entire life revolved around transport and the story of his unstinting passion will now be told to a new generation of enthusiasts.
Mr Broadley’s ticket machine is among the items from his career which will go on display at Dundee Museum of Transport from February following a donation from his grandson Iain Waddell.
Read More: The Courier
This new papercut installation is on view at the Medieval Mile Museum in Kilkenny City over the holidays. The two central pieces were created by a wonderful and hardworking group of participants in workshops in the museum during the month of November. The patterns used are inspired by Blackletter – a script used throughout Europe […]
I never realised how much research went into organising a museum display, but it seems obvious now it’s been pointed out! Many museum displays are so perfectly user-friendly, of course someone has to have put thought into how that should be done.
Read Part 1 here: How Do Museums Learn about Their Visitors?
The job of a museum’s Advisory Panel is to act as advocates for the museum to their representative communities, and to provide a link between the museum and the wider community. Any data they gather needs to be carefully managed. First, this data is analysed in order to be presented either as a summary document or a report. These are then used to share findings with other experts in the field.
A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive finds that people are happier when they spend money on experiences rather than material purchases. According to Leaf Van Boven, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at CU-Boulder, experiences are shown to create more happiness than material goods because they provide positive personal reinterpretations over time. That is, as we revisit the memory of our trip to the museum, we have a tendency to psychologically weed out any negative memories (should there be any).
— Colleen Dilenschneider, 10 Reasons to Visit a Museum.
What visitors will learn, how likely it is that exhibition or museum content will be engaging to different types of visitor and what key messages a museum is communicating (either consciously or not) through its interpretations can all be gauged through visitor data. If there are any improvements to be made or any information about different visitors needed, visitor data helps museums to identify it.
Various aspects of an exhibition or display will be informed by the data gathered through visitor surveys and studies. Some of the findings from these studies will surprise the researchers, but in many cases the ideas already held by the museum or gallery will simply be reconfirmed by the data. It’s very important that visitors feel a sense of ownership over their own experiences, and asking them to get involved with the decisions made in museums helps them to feel that. Keeping a museum or gallery’s audience interested and making sure they feel appreciated is the name of the game here.
It’s interesting to think about what exactly it is that motivates us to visit museums. A fair amount of research has been done on the subject and while some answers have been pinned down, there’s still a long way to go. There are lots of different ways to look at visitors and their reasons for attending a museum, but I’m just going to focus on two theories for now.
“Audience engagement is a form of jumpstart for museums, adding new and alternative perspectives”
— Adam Reed Rozan, Director of Audience Engagement at Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts. (source)
Learning that takes place in more informal settings is Dr John H Falk’s primary interest. He’s respected worldwide for his expertise in “free choice learning”.
Falk analysed museum recollection transcripts for one part of his research. His primary argument is that museums need to understand how a visitor’s experiences can change from museum to museum and visit to visit, and that the categories into which we are divided in traditional visitor studies are not enough if the museum wants to provide for its visitors effectively.
What do people remember from their museum visits? And more importantly, what factors seemed to most contribute to visitors forming these long-term memories? To answer this question, my graduate student Katie Gillespie and I qualitatively analysed the museum recollection transcripts of 22 museum visitors.
— Falk, Understanding Museum Visitors Motivation and Learning.
A person’s experience at a museum is “deeply personal, deeply tied to the individual’s identity,” according to Falk’s research. Visitors can be divided into five categories based on these experiences and identities.
Experience Seekers perceive museums as an important destination and allow this perception to motivate their visit. Once they’ve attended the museum, they can happily feel that they’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt.Visitors’ responses varied from naming or listing to deep reaction… Our analysis revealed that four factors seemed to influence the memories of all 22 of these visitors:
- Things that supported their entering needs and interests.
- Things that were novel.
- Things that had high emotional content for the individual.
- Things that were supported by later experiences.
— Falk, Understanding Museum Visitors Motivation and Learning.
If you find the ideas explained above as interesting as I did, I really recommend reading Falk’s actual report, as it explains it all better than I could hope to and even has some handy graphics.
Similar to Falk’s focus, Volker Kirchberg’s research asks the question, “What kind of experience do visitors have when looking at contemporary art?”
I’ll discuss Kirchberg’s research further in the next post!
While the core of a great museum must be a great collection of works of art, it is the audience experience that unites people with the works of art, brings a collec- tion to life and gives the museum, as an insti- tution for the benefit of the public, its meaning.
— Toledo Museum of Art (via Wallace Foundation)
Company wants to redevelop existing pub in the city and build a 70-bedroom hotel
JD Wetherspoon is planning to open a national museum in Wolverhampton as part of a £7m investment, which the pub chain claims could generate up to 50 jobs.
The proposal would redevelop the existing pub Wetherspoon has in Wolverhampton, The Moon Under Water, and build a national museum and a 70-bedroom hotel. The Moon Under Water is currently based on the ground floor of a five-storey building.
Read more: The Guardian
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to return for a second visit to an amazing exhibit at an art museum. I was first here, the Hunterdon Art Museum, in Clinton, NJ, back in September, for the opening of “Lace not Lace: Contemporary Fiber Art from Lacemaking Techniques.” It is the first exhibit of its kind […]
If the goal of a museum is to allow public access to historical artifacts and information, it’s incredibly important that the visitor’s experience is placed at the centre of all plans. Before embarking on any form of content development, the museum must consider its visitors. Your identified audiences will find certain writing styles, language levels and themes more relevant and interesting than others. This is where visitor studies can come in handy.
Audience engagement is a directive, an approach to looking at museums afresh and focussing on the way they interact together with audiences. Put another way, it is a form of jumpstart for museums, adding sometimes new and alternative perspectives but most often helping to reconnect various areas our institutions and audiences together.
— Adam Reed Rozan, Director of Audience Engagement at Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts. (source)
Everyone has their own unique learning style, and this needs to be taken into consideration by museum curators. For example, information is gathered by visiting families through dialogue and discussion. A family will tend to learn collaboratively, electing to stick together as they explore the museum and experience each exhibit as a unit. This means they respond well to group-based tasks, learning though activity and hands-on learning through interactive exhibits.
Learning styles can vary widely among adult visitors. A lot of adults will have a strong idea of what interests them, and will pick, choose and browse their way through the exhibits until they find what they’re looking for. Adults visiting with other guests may prompt discussion by sharing knowledge and describing experience they already have that relates to the exhibit in question.
The ss Great Britain for example, has decided it will be visitor focused: it will put the visitor first and is actually working through a range of areas where they can make a difference to the visitor. This includes improving the visitor experience across the whole of a visit, interpretation, how you engage different types of visitors and give them what they want.
— Colin Mulberg, Colin Mulberg Consulting. (source)
Talking and interacting is a great way for early years children to build on their knowledge and experience in the museum. Displays encouraging play are particularly successful here. This audience tends to find activities involving interpretation, interaction and discussion either with adults or other children very helpful. Issues that are explained in ways that are relevant and relatable to their own lives will become easier to understand.
We can’t really hope to understand what an audience is looking for until we take the initiative to ask them about it. Museums take care to carry out research with their various audiences to work out just how much they get from their visits and what could be improved. Visitor study staff don’t provide the answers, they interpret the answers given to them by the public.
Museums bring learning to life, inject fun and even increase educational attainment.
To make it as successful as possible, you need to:
- Understand who will visit and why, ensuring your museum appeals to enough people
- Create an attractive and welcoming environment, looking after your visitors
- Identify how you want to broaden and increase your audience
- Identify how far you want to involve your users
- Choose how to bring your collections to life through interpretation
- Create offers for schools and others who want to learn
— Museums Galleries Scotland: Connecting with Visitors.
Every decision made with regards to a museum’s exhibits and displays needs to be based on evidence. An audience’s response to an exhibition or artifact is not something that can be left down to guesswork, because this can easily lead to a curator getting it completely wrong. Museum experiences that don’t take into consideration their target audiences run the risk of failing those audiences altogether.
Story development, content development and many other aspects of an exhibition or event need to be researched carefully. One of the most effective ways to do this is to actively run an idea from the subject curators by their target audience to find out if it makes sense to them, and if the themes and topics are of interest to them. Audience groups are even asked to feedback on their level of engagement and understanding of pieces of text, such as object labels and internal panels.
We are looking at the visitor’s experience from 360 degrees… Everyone’s job is to make visitors more comfortable.
— Mag Partridge, director of public relations and audience development at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. (source)
Things like gallery titles, appropriate lighting levels, proposals, digital interpretation, the number of lifts in the building and many other aspects of the intellectual and physical design and concept of an exhibition or space will also be determined by visitor research. Different approaches are used to gather this data. A balanced insight into audience opinion requires a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, which can be found through things like focus groups, surveys, community visits and face-to-face interviews.
Data and responses from different audience groups can be compared through quantitative data. However, greater insight into the level of understanding can be attained through attained through qualitative research, allowing the formation of a more detailed report. Both types are necessary for a complete understanding of the wants and needs of a museum’s visitors.
We know from decades of research into self-regulated learning that it is important to understand the goals and initial interest people bring to the learning situation. These drive behaviour and learning in different settings, including in museums.
Many museums also reach these decisions through the guidance of their Advisory Panel, who help the museum to develop new methods of attracting new audiences and improve and grow the services they provide for their existing audiences. The focus of these panels is on specific aspects of a museum’s performance, such as their efforts to enable wider community participation, to allow access to people of all different needs, and to develop lifelong learning programmes.
It’s December 2018, and my focus is shifting to something new. Before, my research revolved around the history of feasting. I now want to look at museums as the perfect place to learn about Tudor Dining and many other historical tidbits. Let’s see what we can learn!
Fudors 