In article <[log in to unmask]>, marie maxwell
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>Hello All,
>I encountered an odd situation this weekend.  I visited a friend who is
>manager of a small and slightly new DC metro area museum to see how
>things were doing.  The numbers of people in the relatively new museum were
>small (considering the size of the museum).  I mentioned this observation
>and my friend said that the museum does not advertise at all.  The museum
>is located in a larger building (owned by a VERY large corporation) and
>simply rents the space, thus, for some odd reason cannot advertise.  My
>friend would like to get the word out but the parent company that owns his
>museum has not allotted any funds for advertising.  People are just
>supposed to show up according to their philosophy.  Is it me or is this a
>recipe for disaster?
>
I think it depends on the museum's business plan (no business plan?  Now
_there's_ a recipe for disaster).  If the museum is planning, for
example, to make X% of its income from visitors, and planning for Y,000
visitors, and not getting them, then it does have a problem.

If the problem really is one of attitude, rather than financial
constraint, perhaps re-naming the proposed advertising budget 'public
relations' or even 'education' would help.

But money is not everything - often time is more valuable.   Can a few
staff hours be squeezed to write press releases, to go and give talks to
groups, to write educational materials for use by schools?  Does that
coroporate body have a staff newsletter (editors of such are normally
desperate for news items).  Does the corporate body have a web site?

--
Pat Reynolds
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at home
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at work
Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum
   "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Prattchet)