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Date: | Sat, 21 Feb 1998 07:09:29 -0500 |
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Emma McCartney writes
> Or, like me do you feel that the visitor
> does matter and indeed without them the Museum is missing some of its
> potential vitality. Some may even say that without the visitor why have an open
> Museum but clearly that's another debate- perhaps for the future
I cant imagine that there can be really opposing views on the subject
for a museum administrator, tho I guess I could imagine a collections
person seriously raising this question. But of course visitors are the
core of the business. Even if you were able to develop some sort of
conceptual rationale for having a museum without visitors (the Barnes as
the classic american example), it is impossible to create a functioning
model of such a museum (the Barnes is again a good example).
Of course there are real questions about the degree to which a museum
shapes its operations around the visitors experience, the balance of
resources devoted to that aspect of the museum, etc. We, at the New
York Hall of Science are making a real effort to focus on making the
visitor experience more satisfactory. We have to (and want to) because
"visitors" have so many options for their saturday afternoons.
I don't imagine coming up with a set of written standards, tho that is
an interesting idea. Are there any other such things you know of in the
museum world? I know disney does this very intensively.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Eric Siegel
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