In this article, Donna M. McElroy, education curator at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center (Pueblo, Colorado), discusses evaluation strategies and key findings used to create and improve a self-guide "birds-eye view" map to the Asian Collection at the Denver Art Museum.
In this article, Colorado State University researcher Jerome Dagostino presents a review of three noteworthy museum studies to highlight the variety of different survey techniques used to evaluate art museums.
In this article, researchers from Colorado State University discuss a research study at the Denver Art Museum. The study investigated how one survey of visitors to the museum was used to increase staff awareness of different levels of audience commitment, while at the same time yielding evaluation information about an Asian Art exhibit to guide planning of new interpretation materials.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ross LoomisMarc FuscoRuth EdwardsMelora McDermott
In this article, Eileen Walker of the Royal Ontario Museum discusses the usefulness of front-end evaluation as the museum renovates all of its galleries. In particular, Walker outlines the front-end evaluation process of the museum's new European Galleries, which aimed at determining visitors' interests, prior knowledge, activities, and preferences in areas related to European Decorative Arts and to the display of such objects. The data informed and facilitated decision-making in the early stages of the gallery development project.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum will design, test, fabricate, and circulate to eight museums an exhibit, "The Science of Music: Sound Waves and Sound Forms" that will introduce visitors to the physical laws that govern sound waves. By using music as an attractive and concrete subject to engage broad public interest, the exhibit will illustrate such topics as sound wave amplitude, phase, frequency, reflection and interference. Primary support for the project comes from the eight member Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, consisting of: the Franklin Institute Science Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Discovery Place, Charlotte, NC; the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Fort Worth, TX; the California Museum of Science and Industry, Los Angeles, CA; the Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN; the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL; the Center of Science and Industry (COSI), Columbus, OH; and the Museum of Science, Boston, MA. Each has contributed $50,000 and the costs of exhibit shipping and maintenance. Direct matching fund support totals more than $381,000. The exhibit will spend three months in each location, and the total audience will exceed 1.5-million visitors over its eight museum tour. This project will extend the work of a group of museums that are already helping each other in a collaborative effort. The exhibit concept has high public appeal among groups that science finds it hard to reach, including teenagers and minorities. An FY87 award of $145,000 is recommended.