We all know we live in, well, interesting times. Especially when it comes to history, identity, and inclusion.

These interesting times are opening up fears and challenges in ways that are sometimes unexpected. Such as in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.

This survey didn't focus history specifically. Or inclusionary interpretation and practices. Or social justice.  (If you are looking for that audience research, stay tuned … I'm deep in analysis of new research fielded this fall.)

But the survey did ask about the impact of museums, and a handful of respondents took the opportunity to share their thoughts about these topics, likely because it was on their mind and this was an opportunity to do so.

So I did what every good researcher does: I flagged them. Clearly, this is something important that we need to know about.

Let's start, however, by backing up and considering history specifically.

No museums = no history

For many museum-goers (and the broader population as well), museums are repositories of history. Since museums house the tangible remainders of the past, they embody history. Just look at the sense of loss and national identity in Brazil after the catastrophic fire at their National Museum.
​
Similarly, when I asked museum-goers last winter to consider their community (or the world) without museums, many suggested that, without museums, history and identity would be lost:

Given that heavy responsibility (and opportunity) for museums, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise then that presenting more inclusive history stirs a response.

Revisionist history fears (the unsolicited comments)

Since the survey didn't ask about history methodology, inclusive history practices, or social justice, only a handful of respondents spontaneously brought up these topics. That should be absolutely clear, as these comments are not representative of all museum-goers. But there were enough of them to suggest that the concerns they raise (as well as the appreciation some expressed) are more widespread.
​
The majority of comments I flagged did not care for history being "changed." Examples include:

​Some seemed both critical and contradictory at the same time:

To be honest, I'm not sure how history can be presented in ways that we both learn from the past and not touch on politics and/or social justice and/or other difficult history.

And while no one actually used the term "revisionist history," it was a lurking undercurrent. There was a clear sense that history as they felt it should be presented was the appropriate history, and likely aligned with the type of history many museums presented throughout most of the twentieth century: white history. Similarly, there seemed to be a lack of awareness that other stories, voices, and perspectives of the past are equally valid, illuminate history more clearly, and sometimes give a more accurate and complete account of the past.

The cynic in me would also like to point out that most museum-goers, and the broader population, also think museums should present all perspectives of the past. Apparently, for some, what they want in theory (all perspectives) isn't what they want in reality if they are crying foul when those more inclusive perspectives are actually shared.

Frustrating, isn't it?

How we handle this, however, matters deeply. 81% of Americans trust the information presented by history museums and historic sites. But in this age of alternative facts and divisive opinions, that trust is fragile. And while I don't have specific recommendations right now (… analyzing fresh research on the topic now), failing to present a more complete, inclusive history perpetuates a greater wrong to the real truth of history, and all that that means.
​
I'll leave you, however, with a far more hopeful comment that I also flagged for similar, yet totally different, reasons. I'll let it speak for itself.

Click on the image for a downloadable (and printable) PDF.

- NEW - 2019 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Research Themes Announcement

Make the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers possible!

• Do you value this research?
• Does it help you in your work at your museum?
• Do you want it to continue to help you and our field?
• And would custom results about your museum's stakeholders help even more?

If so, enroll your museum in the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum Goers, and you can easily benchmark the visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographics of your stakeholders. Additionally, you can compare your results to your peers, begin to track them over time, and gain far more contextual information through your custom results and report. The fee for 2019 is only $1,000 per museum. 

Quick links for more information:

• Informational PDF
• To enroll
• 2019 Survey Scope document (for those who want to really geek out)

​Click on the image for a downloadable (and printable) PDF.

Make the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers possible!

• Do you value this research?
  
• Does it help you in your work at your museum?
  
• Do you want it to continue to help you and our field?
  
• And would custom results about your museum's stakeholders help even more?
  

If so, enroll your museum in the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum Goers, and you can easily benchmark the visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographics of your stakeholders. Additionally, you can compare your results to your peers, begin to track them over time, and gain far more contextual information through your custom results and report. The fee for 2019 is only $1,000 per museum. 

"Museums represent humanity in all of its breadth, wonder, rawness and beauty. A world without museums would be less human. Simple as that."
- Respondent, 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers

It's the question we all ask ourselves, all the time: What is the impact of museums?

Yet within this question lie many deeper questions. What is the impact we have on children? On adults? Our communities? Is there a ripple effect, with those who don't visit museums still benefiting in some way?

The initial answer is yes, of course. No question we have impact. But defining that impact, isolating it to museums, measuring it, assessing our effectiveness, well, we all know that is far trickier.
Yet nothing is more important to measure. After all, this is the articulation of why we matter, not only to those who visit us, but to everyone.

Unsurprisingly, then, impact was a big theme in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers and Broader Population Sampling. And the good news is that both museum-goers and non-visitors happen to think we do some pretty great things.

Overall Findings - Museum-Goers

So what are the top five impacts of museums, according to museum-goers? In descending order, that museums make us:

1. More knowledgeable (74%)
2. More curious about the world (66%)
3. More well-rounded/broadened horizons (61%)
4. More understanding of other viewpoints and/or greater empathy (43%)
5. More creative (37%)

Pretty fantastic, right? And what is fascinating for me to see is that when I look at all of the cross tabs and filters that help me segment museum-goers, I see that these impacts are fairly consistent, regardless of life stage, demographics, and geography (I'm thinking red state/blue state). Sure, there's some movement and nuance (we'll get to that), but overall, the values that underlie these impacts are universal.

(Respondents could also write in other impacts, and some great things were shared, but nothing really jumped out as significant.)

Broader Population

My broader population sampling returned a similar, but not exactly the same, ranking. In this case, however, the majority of respondents are non-visitors projecting impact on those who do visit museums.

1. More knowledgeable (55%)
2. More curious about the world (50%)
3. More creative (35%)
4. More well-rounded/broadened horizons (34%)
5. More understanding of other viewpoints and/or greater empathy (31%)

But while the overall percentages were lower for the broader population (not a surprise), it is interesting to note that the percentage responding "more creative" is actually pretty consistent across both samples. 

What's Next to Share

These top impacts do, of course, merit more scrutiny around who, how, and why. I'll be looking at four of these impacts more closely, and sharing more nuance, over the coming weeks.

Supplementing this quantitative work was an open-ended question museum-goers were asked to consider: imagine a community or world with no museums. Turns out, the loss-aversion tactic works really well in helping people articulate the role museums have played in their lives. These responses will flesh out the how and why of what I share.

The responses were also overwhelmingly heartfelt and stridently in support of the significant role museums play in people's lives. So much so that every day I post a new, randomly chosen, response and share it on my Facebook page and Twitter feed (@susiewilkening). Follow me in either place for a daily dose of "hey, you matter!"

But I want to push back a bit on the one impact I won't be focusing on: well-rounded/broadened horizons. To be fair, I think this is a fantastic impact, and is one I would certainly choose for myself and for what I hope museums are doing for my own children. That being said … the values it embraces are inherent in the other four impacts. Indeed, I would say being well-rounded, with broader horizons, comes as a result of the knowledge, curiosity, empathy, and creativity that museums cultivate.

I'll wrap up this series with a release on revisionist history. Because even though that wasn't my question (at least, not in this survey), some comments on Confederate monuments, and a perception of the past being "changed" came through. They may have only been a handful of comments, but the themes they reflect, in today's polarized society, matter deeply to our work.


Methodology Notes
​
In my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, I asked respondents to share with me what they felt the impact of museums in their life had been. Their open-ended responses were amazing, and I shared many of them last year in a series of posts. For 2018, I took the most common themes from those answers and created a close-ended question so that we could assess what percentage of museum-goers had experienced each outcome. I then developed a similar question for the broader population, asking them to identify the impact of museums on those that visit.

But asking about impact directly doesn't always give museum-goers room to articulate the role museums actually place in their lives. In the 2017 survey, one respondent mused, “Can you imagine a world without museums?” Great question, so I included it.


Make the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers possible!

Do you value this research? Does it help you in your work at your museum? Do you want it to continue to help you and our field?

If so, consider how useful it would be to know how your museum's stakeholders feel about your museum, lifelong learning in museums, and more. By enrolling your museum in the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum Goers, you can easily benchmark the visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographics of your stakeholders. Additionally, you can compare your results to your peers, begin to track them over time, and gain far more contextual information through your custom results and report. The fee for 2019 is only $1,000 per museum. 

In today's busy society, when and where do families have high-quality family time?

Think about that for a moment. As parents shuttle children to activities (especially once they hit school age), and devices have infiltrated the lives of children of all ages, family time has gotten lost.

It doesn't happen because the family isn't home together much.

It doesn't happen because car time, for many children, is device time.

It doesn't happen at restaurants because, again, devices.

And it doesn't even happen at home. At home, parents are getting things done around the house, dealing with work emails, kids are doing homework (if they are even home), and everyone can stream what they want onto whatever device they want.

Now, I am (admittedly) over-generalizing. And I am not indicting today's parents (honestly, parents today can't win because we are also accused of over-helicoptering).

Over the past couple of years, I have been observing an increasing sense among parents that there are few places that truly promote family time. Parents tell me how hard it is to have those moments of family time, and they often do indict the increase of devices in our lives.

Family time now has to be deliberately planned as out-of-the-home outings to places that promote real-life engagement and forced family time. And museums serve that role for many museum-going parents, because museums are about shared experiences and learning.

(That doesn't mean museums should be anti-phone, by the way. After all, parents do want to take pictures and document those shared family experiences. But the data is overwhelming that visitors want object-based and hands-on experiences in museums, not digital ones.)

The findings on family time in museums, however, also presents a bit of a conundrum. While half of parents explicitly say that one of the reasons they visit museums is for family time, only about a third say stronger connections with family is an outcome of museum visits. Additionally, among the broader population, only a quarter of parents think museums strengthen bonds among families.

So what we are presented with is an impact/articulation gap (just like we saw when we looked at the families and curiosity data). We have strong evidence of this significant motivation and impact among families, which is worded in strong terms in qualitative work as well. Now we need to help more museum-going families bridge that impact/articulation gap by clearly articulating ourselves that we promote strong family connections by allowing families to "hit a reset button to the frantic scurry of modern life," as one museum-going parent shared.

This creates a positive cycle of association and impact that can (and should) encourage broader audiences of families to visit museums either more often or in the first place. After all, this is now a primary differentiating factor of museums; few other places provide multi-generational experiences that nurture family connections.

It also significantly strengthens our case for support. While our most significant impacts are rooted in the content that we share, this doesn't mean that outcomes that are not content-based, but catalyzed by the experience itself, are not significant. They are, and powerfully so. It is our work, however, to measure that impact, share it, and help our visitors be more conscious of it and articulate it for themselves so that our impact can spread and deepen.

And if you are asking yourself about those other impacts, both content and experientially-based, that research is coming up next for release.


Do you value this research? Does it help you in your work at your museum? Do you want it to continue to help you and our field?

​If so, consider how useful it would be to know how your museum's stakeholders feel about your museum, lifelong learning in museums, and more. By enrolling your museum in the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum Goers, you can easily benchmark the visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographics of your stakeholders. Additionally, you can compare your results to your peers, begin to track them over time, and gain far more contextual information through your custom results and report. The fee for 2019 is only $1,000 per museum.