Excerpted below:

Engaging others through humor or playfulness is an extremely effective teaching method to help understand the world around us...
   
  To effectively engage our audience we need to balance significant exhibition content with "people bait": humor, intrigue, and sometimes bright, shiny objects...

  Perhaps that may be why more people are attracted to theme parks rather than museums?


Museumchanteuse, et. al,

You raise an excellent point with those comments, which brings up the idea of free choice learning (to move on from trolling for the moment.) How are we to compete as cultural institutions with arenas such as theme parks, etc. if the perception of museums are dry, and rigid? Giving learning opportunities in a variety of formats, learning styles, (and even humorously) provides visitors with the opportunity to engage in a topic on their terms, and within their realm of experience. In short, it allows a more direct connection to their own lives, and if it's relevant to them, then they are more willing to learn.

With the myriad of visitor studies currently being done, the days of lecturing, or merely "provide it, and they will come because of the inherent, and intrinsic value of the subject" or "This has to be rigidly adhered to, because I think this is really cool, so you should too." are proving to be dying, or already gone. With competing entertainment, and education through technology, we can't simply sit back and wait for people to come to us, we have to do the leg work to get people through our doors (and hopefully coming back.)

Many, many, (and again many) museums are facing not just budget cut backs, but rather whether or not they can keep the doors open at all. Others in the current economic situation are faced with slashes in programming, staff, and private financial support. 

Indeed, all of this raises an excellent point about what we can learn about theme parks in relation to capturing and holding an audience? Not to say that entertainment would or should take the place of education, but rather that education can be entertaining (and sometimes funny.) Nor is it to insinuate that these products would be cheapened (or that there's anything wrong with entertainment for entertainments sake) but rather how can something so serious and important as one's cultural, artistic, or natural heritage be given a slant that will make people want to come not just once through a museums door, but again and again.

Theme parks, and other businesses are most certainly taking cues from the museum field on how to make their business interesting, and some even use historical ideas or themes to get people through the door. To remain relevant, and competitive, museums have to be equally as diligent about what they do, what they preserve (preserving buildings, historical collections, art won't get saved if the society doesn't make it relevant) as well as the type of educational programming offered to the public at large.

All right, enough seriousness from this museum professional. Anybody remember those goofy little troll dolls with the brightly colored hair and big goofy eyes?

Now, where did I leave that Guide to International Museums for my upcoming vacation...

Cheers,

Dan



Dan Schoeneberg
Historic Area Manager
1886 Liberty Corner

Conner Prairie
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