Hello all, I'm needing some anecdotes from your museums and references to studies and research regarding exhibit change frequency... I have some visitor study data from our museum and others in our local area that say more than half of museum patrons visit a particular museum no more than once a year. If a visitor comes to our museum on the same date each year, they will have completely missed one of our 3 temporary exhibits that are all researched, designed, programmed, and installed by museum staff. About 15 cars trade places during each exhibit swap and the gallery space itself is stripped, redecorated thematically, and reinterpreted. We have no mandate to do a specific number of exhibits per year, but we pride ourselves on regularly presenting new content in an automotive museum. In a quick scan of other museums, many seem to do 2-4 exhibit swaps, but some of those are traveling exhibits, smallish art galleries, etc. I think that the majority of our visitors would not notice a slowdown in the exhibit turnover schedule (just 2 full-scale exhibits per year?) nor would they have a particularly negative reaction. But the staff, budget, educational programs, sponsorship, and press coverage would see real improvement. So, does anybody have experience slowing their exhibit schedule, any data to support that kind of move, or suggestions for how I can evaluate the impact our temporary exhibits have on visitors beyond asking how often they visit and if they remember the last "feature exhibition" they saw when they came? Many thanks! Clayton Drescher Education Manager Petersen Automotive Museum 6060 Wilshire Blvd (at Fairfax) Los Angeles, CA 90036 (P) 323-964-6347 (F) 323-964-6422 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).