Saturday, May 2, 2009

How DO Audiences Want to Use Museums?

Perhaps I am a bit of a hypocrite. Over on the WestMuse blog, I opined earlier that I didn't feel as connected as I would have liked to through the FutureQuest game here at AAM. But at this evening's event at the amazing University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology I felt almost exactly the opposite.

The evening was structured by a group activity--everyone was divided into teams for a scavenger hunt. I opted out, preferring instead to be able to explore on my own and at my leisure, not wanting all that much group involvement with my experience. I think what I really want is to connect with others about museums, but when I am in a museum, I really only want to connect with the objects.

So now the question is, am I a relic in terms of how I want to use museums, or am I not alone in my sentiments? If the answer is the latter rather than the former, then I am quite wrong about how audiences want to interact with museums...

1 comment:

  1. Allyson, I think it is more a situation of fatigue. Sometimes you'll want to interact with the stuff, sometimes with people. Think about the reality of your previous days: lots of talking which makes me not surprised that you wanted to escape into that lovely looking mind-set.

    There isn't just one way we experience museums. I think it is important for museums to offer options and models for our visitors so they understand that they can interact or not when they visit.

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