In response to Claudia's comment about museums not reaching all people- 
museums reach very few people- about 14% (Hood in her thesis on Toronto art 
museum visitors) and of those "reached" they spend very few hours / year in 
a museum.  It would be an unusual visitor who spends more than 10 hours a 
year in a particular museum.

I think museums are overrated on their informal educational potential.  If 
we were truly interested in informing the public we would use entertainment 
(not educational ) television because that is how America spends its leasure 
time.  Get a Van Gogh or a dinosaur bone on Friends or CSI and you have the 
potential to teach tens of millions per night.  I suspect that all museums 
in the US might draw that many in a year.....


Claudia said:

   During my museum "hiatus" I worked as a supermarket cashier (we still had
to eat), and I can tell you that I no longer believe museums (many) reach
all of the public.  Although I have not yet figured out what we would need
to do to reach a public that is unacquainted with the word "curator" and
doesn't know or value history (at least, in my world of history museums), I
hope to have that kind of epiphany soon.  Certainly my interim work will
inform my new work in ways I don't yet understand.



   Best wishes to all,

   Claudia



   Claudia J. Nicholson

   Executive Director

   North Star Museum of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting

   651-739-8857

   [log in to unmask]

   www.nssm.org




Christopher H. Whittle, Ph.D.
Research Fellow, Center for Inquiry &
Faculty, Department of Learning and Instruction
State University of New York, Buffalo
716-645-2455 ext. 1136
3925 Rensch Road, Amherst, NY 14228
[log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask]

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