I would strongly suggest that either all the museums in your group
charge or do not charge admission.  If one charges and the rest do not,
their attendance will be affected significantly.  Is there any way you
could charge a general admission to the whole "mall" and split the
revenue?

> ----------
> From:         Ginny Cass[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Museum discussion list
> Sent:         Friday, October 31, 1997 11:55AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Admission charges
>
> Henry B. Crawford wrote:
> >
> > Friends,
> >
> > I have an undergraduate student volunteer who is doing a paper on
> the issue
> > of admission charges for government (city, county, state, or fed.)
> museums.
> > I have directed him toward all the printed literature I could think
> of (he
> > found some information in _Curator_ on his own), but he needs
> opinions from
> > the field.  This issue pops up once in a while on M.-L, so I thought
> I'd
> > throw it out there again for his benefit.  He's looking for informed
> > opinions, possible literature citations, interesting conference
> sessions
> > attended, etc.  He is leaning toward admission charges as a positive
> thing,
> > but wants to state good cases for both admission charges as well as
> free
> > admission.  He is interviewing some people here, but opinions from
> other
> > museum people are an important part of his information gathering.
> Please
> > reply.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > HBC
> >
> > *****************************************
> > Henry B. Crawford        Curator of History
> > [log in to unmask]     Museum of Texas Tech University
> > 806/742-2442           Box 43191
> > FAX 742-1136             Lubbock, TX  79409-3191
> >                WEBSITE: http://www.ttu.edu/~museum
> > **********    "Living History Rocks!!"    **********
>
>
> I would be extremely interested in hearing more about this project.
>
> Our organization is wrestling with these kinds of issues at the
> moment.
> We have twelve units in seven buildings on one block (you might liken
> this to seven houses in a row in a regional park - there are few other
> buildings nearby, almost all of them with public offices, e.g. gov't -
> and they are all on the National Register) that we expect to place
> museums in.  You might call it a museum mall.  We are interested in
> knowing how admissions will affect the museums, the management of the
> property, what the interaction might look like if some museums charge
> admission and others don't.  So it is of particular interest to us to
> know how admission fees work in a multiple-museum setting.
>
> Our property is located just a block from the county historical
> museum,
> which has recently instituted an admission policy because of
> tightening
> county budgets.  The interaction of our (potential, private) museums
> and
> the existing county museum is important to us as well.
>
> We are planning to open our first building in the beginning of 1998,
> with up to three private collections in the seven bedroom home.  These
> three collections will operate as separate "museums" and at least one
> of
> them is planning to charge admission.
>
> I would be pleased to correspond with the student doing this research,
> via list, back channel or snail mail.  Thanks.
>
> ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
>
> Ginny Cass
> President, Board of Directors
> Northern Rockies Heritage Center
> P. O. Box 1884
> Missoula, MT  59806-1884
> phone 406-728-3662 (message)
> fax 406-728-5963
> email [log in to unmask]
> http://www.nrhc.org
>