Dr. Meier:

You may have the critical size already if you can convince your collegues
to a different approach. With joint marketing what you have available
using brochures, travel advertisements and stories, web sites and other
ways of promoting one another, you can convince the traveler to spend
more time in the community.

When I traveled to Europe, I found that even if I walked through the
Louvre or the various other museums for more hours, all I was doing was
mentally checking off the list that I had walked by some famous item.
Unless I was doing research, a day in one spot was almost too much. It
was when I was in the smaller cities and doing multiple things that I
absorbed more. I still treaure my days in Luzern and Interlaken for those
reasons: a slow walk across the Totenbruecke was = to an hour or two in
an art museum, then a visit to the statue of the Lion, then a stop for
lunch, then a visit to.... you get the idea. The next day I might go back
to the cathedral or the museum to see more of what I missed the first
stop. The visit to the Louvre remains a blur of walking by while a
Kadinsky in Oslo, the Vasa in Stockholm, a particular Rembrandt in
Dahlem, the salt mine at the Deutsche Museum in Muenchen leap to the fore
in this trip down memory lane.

In Texas, a state historic house in a small community near San Antonio,
Seguin or Castroville, I forget which, did joint marketing including a
weekend package with bread and breakfast reservations, restaurants, and
historic sites and found all benefited greatly. Maybe that is an idea for
you and your collegues. I hope to do the same with some of my neighbors.

When I first started writing I had not seen Beth Tischler's post about
the arrangements in Philly. I agree that she has a great way to approach
the situation. As you can see the trolly will allow the visitor the
multiple 1 or 2 hour experience I reference.  Big buildings can
intimidate. The summer I wanted to know more about the Smithsonian, I
worked in DC in order to have many opportunities to visit---and that was
back when they only had about six or seven sites to visit.

Those who love big (and that it makes them feel more important) will urge
the greater size. But as Lori Allen pointed out, some found the visitor
found some sizes too big!!! As reflected in the USS Wisconsin account. I
believe that huge museum forgot the needs of the visitor.

Good luck with your project.

Mary Kirby
Historic Upshur Museum
Gilmer, Texas

On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 12:31:07 +-200 "Thomas D. Meier" <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
> Dear listmembers
>
> Thank you for the responses to my question about the "ciritcal size"
> of museums. Maybe I'll have to go a bit further into detail. I of
> course totally agree with the view that most of you expressed, that
> it is first content and the creation of interest that counts,
> especially in the planning of a new museum. Size comes afterwards.
>
> But I would still defend the idea that size matters to a certain
> extent. The problem we are dealing with here is that in a quite
> restricted area there are situated a number of mid-size museums: a
> history museum, a natural history museum, the Swiss Museum of
> Communication, the Swiss Alpine Museum and a contemporary art
> gallery. These museums are reasonably staffed, their budgets are ok
> (that still means to low of course), their collections are big
> enough to create interest on a large scale. None of this fairly
> successful museums however can on its own offer visitors an
> experience that would make a longer trip for a day-out worthwhile.
> And that has to do with size, facilities and a variety of offers to
> visitors. My aim would be to make my neighbouring museums understand
> that we have to work together much more closely. Because then the
> "critical size" can more easily be obtained. In order to give a bit
> of weight to what I am driving at I wanted to know if anyone had any
> idea about what "critical size" in a museum context could mean. I
> know that things like that are being discussed, I simply don't know
> precisely who is actually discussing it and what the results of this
> discussions might be.  And to be clear once again: I am actually
> talking about square feet or square meters even though I know that
> this is a somewhat reductive and rather basic approach.
>
> Thanks again
>
> Thomas
>
> ------------------------------------
> Dr. Thomas Dominik Meier
> Director
> Museum of Communication
> Helvetiastrasse 16
> 3000 Bern 6
> Switzerland
> T: +41 31 357 55 10
> F: +41 31 357 55 99
> [log in to unmask]
>
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