Catherine

I dn't know if this would help-its was a small project done for an Honours
thesis 6 years ago-but I timed visitors viewing two displays on hominid
evolution-one consisted of a couple of panels and would have taken
approximately 6 minutes to read:

42.7% walked on by
31.1% glanced at the panels
19.4% spent less than two minutes looking at them
5.8% spent 2-4 minutes
1.0% spent 5-6 minutes
Sample: 103
A bigger display that would take approximately 20min to view got the
following response
32.2% less than 2 min
35.5% 2-4min
19.4% 4-7min
8.6% 7-12 min
2.2% 12-15min
2.2% +15 min
Sample 93
Kathryn Mathers 1990 Evolution, Exhibits and Education. A survey of
Museum Visitors. Unpublished Honours thesis Centre for African
Studies, University of Cape Town
Perhaps not as comprehensive as you need. I am chasing down
someone I know who did a big evaluation for a museum in Canada,
which apparently used sensitive pad under the carpets to time visitors in
front of each display. Will post it as soon as I've got it.

I would like to comment on the more general discussion as well.
Especially about the point that visistors ignore the lables because they
don't offer them what they want-entertainment. A lot of
research-espeically Marilyn Hood's, shows that people do value
education in museums and that is why they are ther-so perhaps it is not
that our lables are not entertaining but that they are not offering the
information that people want-as has been pointed out by others. In SA
the perception is that museums are for educating children, but not adults
so perhaps our lables should be giving parents something to use to
intepret the displays for the kids and hopefully in the process raise their
own interests.

Kathryn