Audience Research 101 #museumeval

Lovely ceramic from Shoalhaven’s current show

Had a very productive day at the Shoalhaven City Arts Centre yesterday talking all things audience. Was good to get stuck back in to talking evaluation and re-visiting one of my more popular workshop topics – how to do audience research with no money?!

As I (rashly) promised to workshop participants, here are some links to get started:

• Audience Research, Australian Museum – contains a wide range of resources, how to’s and evaluation reports
• #epicfail: Has audience research become irrelevant in museums? Keynote address at the Connected Audience Conference, organised by Kulturagenda and the Jewish Museum Berlin
• Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums Paper that outlines the history of audience research and methods
• (post) digital visitors Blog post plus paper looking at what 20 years of audience research has taught us about visitors
• The “Museum Constant”: One-third plus or minus a bit – blog post on visitor motivations
• When evaluation doesn’t “feel” like evaluation – easy and innovative ways to solicit visitor feedback

And, some reports and findings:

• Audience Research Reading List – an oldie but a goodie!
• Australian Museum evaluation reports
• What teachers want from museums
• Student learning in museums: what do we know?
• Reflections on the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools 2001-2015 – range of studies with school students, including lots of links
• Attracting Chinese International Tertiary Students to museums
• Social Media News blog – great resource about what Australians are doing online
• Know Your Own Bone blog – great resources and data on a range of things we discussed yesterday, especially attracting audiences to museums

And, How-to blog posts:

• Exhibition evaluation explained
• Conducting a focus group
• Tracking and observation
• Sampling
• How to write an audience development plan – Ben Gammon, Museum iD

If you’re ever heading down south of Sydney check out the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery – managed by Bronwyn Coulston (@alcornb79) – it’s really great!