Re: How important is the Visitor?
Not to divert this thread, but the question of 'how important is the
visitor' and the responsibility of "having stewardship over collections"
(as described below in the posting on which this is a comment) is the crux
of the difference between the public and the museum professional. In my
experience, not just the public, but museum boards seldom if ever
understand that collections and collections stewardship are the defining
characteristics of a museum. The public and board members' view of a museums
tends to be that they are defined by visitors and programs. The museum
professional, on the other hand, (if they are still trained the way I was in
a simpler time) are "objects people" (Edward P. Alexander's first question
to me when I said I wanted to do museum work was "Are you an objects
person?"). Meaning 'are objects the sine qua non of your interest, and do
you wish to work in an environment where collection and preservation of
OBJECTS is as important as research, interpretation, and education programs
stemming from the objects?' The question of visitor importance was
secondary to the collection. Having by now dealt with hundreds of board
members in many different types of institutions, I've yet to find one who
thinks that way unless they themselves were trained in museum work. In fact,
I've gotten so used to groups proposing to found museums without considering
what the museum will collect, that I am always taken aback when someone
occasionally says about a proposed museum or exhibition, 'yes, but WHAT will
it have in it?' Visitation is what most boards focus on, and the people who
work in museums are driven by it in consequence. It is why collections care
in too many places is not nearly as good as it should be, too.
I think in the vast expansion of museums in the US since 1950, and of
history museums especially since 1976, that we in the museum profession (US,
anyway) have too passively gone along with the notion that museums are
attractions with programs, existing primarily to attract visitors. And
consequently, when we don't deliver visitors as efficiently as other
attractions, we are judged deficient, and viewed as not having made visitors
enough of a priority. Actually as a profession, we have to some extent made
visitors TOO important in terms of counting them as totals, and as the main
indicators of institutional success. And we have been terrible at educating
the public at large as to the importance of collecting and collections
stewardship, or even of the unique value of objects as opposed to other
"media." (I wonder about museum people who opine that "exhibitions" on
Internet can be a real substitute for an actual exhibition; are they in the
right career?) I worry that museums will suffer from the resultant skewed
public perception of what museums exist to do. Too often we fail to ask how
important is the TYPE of visitor is that we get, and how important is the
TYPE of museum we create to attract them, and at what cost.
Sorry. This is on my mind a lot lately.
>Having stewardship for collections is the foundation for many museums.
>Caring for these objects appropriately is essential. Making use of their
>educational and informative potential is also essential.
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