Thank you to those who responded with their ideas about how to best count visitors in exhibit galleries.  It seems that despite the increased emphasis on quantifiable results in museum work, visitor counters seem to have not changed much over time.  Is this because there isn't a demand for better ways of doing this (more accurate, less obtrusive, compatible with pc networks) or is the state of the art adequate?  Or maybe this isn't an issue with most museums which count visitors at the door and not at individual exhibits.  Here at American History we've been trying to measure visitation at some exhibits through the use of free ticketing.  It also seems to have the intangible benefit of creating an additional value in the mind of the visitor.  The visitor might think that if the demand to see the exhibit is high enough to warrant tickets, the exhibit is special, and a must-see.  Its too early to tell if this is true, but its something that is being tested.  For the exhibit that I'm working on, a large transportation exhibit, we're considering "passports" or "driver's licenses" to aid us in measuring our visitor numbers, and are toying with the idea that we could design these systems to monitor the amount of time spent at a section, to inform later iterations.  So it seems that there are many ways to do this, but it doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in it.  Any thoughts?
(Thanks again, and sorry to be long-winded.)
Laura Hansen
National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Institution 

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