Last summer, a fire overwhelmed a museum, destroying thousands of "irreplaceable artifacts" and leaving "devastation inside." Things "gone." A "disastrous list" of losses. And a major hit on the memory of a place.

Am I talking about Brazil's National Museum? Nope. I am referring to the loss of the Aberdeen Museum of History, here in Washington State. This small community was devastated by a fire that consumed not only their museum, but also a senior center and low-income assistance offices.

The words used to describe the loss, however, are fascinating, as they convey the idea that the objects of a community's past are part of its memory and what make a place, well, a distinctive place.

When loss makes palpable what we take for granted, it becomes much easier to articulate value. In my work, I call this the "loss aversion" line of inquiry (which is quite useful for sussing out the impact of museums, as we have recently seen). 

But communities don't lose museums very often, so how museums do (or do not) contribute to that sense of place is hard for most people to articulate. I suspected this to be true, which is why in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, I had a lead-in question about sense of place when traveling. 

So what did I find when I asked museum-goers to share if they thought their local museums contributed to the sense of place of their own communities? Four out of five respondents said yes, their local museums contributed to their community's sense of place. So that is great news, right?

Well, sort of. Yes, it is great news that there is pretty universal agreement here. But here's the thing: many respondents couldn't back it up with why. They had comments like:

• "yes...can't really articulate why."
• "They do but I'm not sure why?"

There were also a lot of simple "yes" responses, but nothing else. Nothing to say how, or why. Responses, overall, were far less detailed than for the first question about sense of place when traveling.

So let's pick apart what people did say, and then come back to what people didn't.

First, history organizations were overwhelmingly given credit for helping create a sense of place, with art museums on their heels. Comments like these two illustrate this (one rather thoughtful, one more typical):

• "Yes.  Regardless of where you live, others lived there before you.  Their history, art, lives and stories combine to explain how and why your community is the way it is."
• "Reminds us that we live in an area with a significant history."

But whose history creates that sense of place? One respondent noted that a place is shaped by "what it chooses to preserve about its history," which gives us a wrinkle that is, of course, rather important: what we choose to preserve. Thus, it shouldn't surprise us that we also had a few comments like this one:

• "In [my community] that depends entirely on who you are and what color you are.  We have some fine historical repositories, and most white natives with some education and money identify strongly with them -- but they are definitely white elitist institutions."

While there were only a handful of comments like this, that it was only a bare handful also likely reflects that the vast majority of respondents were white and not necessarily noticing that the history being preserved isn't sharing a complete story of the past. (Stay tuned for more on this topic in 2019.)

How museums contribute to a sense of place also depends on the type of museum. While some felt that all types of museum contributed, there were a handful of comments that said things like this one:

• "Some do, but some don't. The science museum does not, but that's because it's centered around science and not [my community]."

And a few, a very few, just said nope.

• "No, I don't see museums as a community thing."

So what does this all mean? First, the vast majority of museum-goers do think museums contribute to their community's sense of place. But … only a fraction can articulate why.

And if our best friends, our regular museum-goers, cannot articulate it, that means casual and non-visitors surely cannot either. When residents cannot articulate our value, our impact, then it makes it harder for us to make our case for support so that we can do more of this work that benefits communities.

Instead, we have to do a better job of articulating how we contribute to our communities ourselves, in this case through a sense of place (but in all ways we contribute, of course). We need to use language that our visitors and the residents in our communities can then pick up and use as well. Otherwise, if we are not sharing the how, the why, and the value of our work, how can we expect others to do so?

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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.

"I visit local museums to feel a part of my world. On vacations, I visit museums to discover worlds that differ from my own." - This and all quotes from respondents of the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers
Introduction

Sense of place. That fuzzy something that makes each different city or place different. That gives it character, and personality, setting it apart from other cities or communities.

The idea that museums contribute to a sense of place in individual cities and communities isn't new; it comes up periodically in our field. It is also an idea that pops up fairly regularly in my work with museum-goers, especially when they share with me that they cannot imagine going on vacation somewhere without visiting the local museums.

But while I think that it is lovely when people plan trips around museums, there's a harder question that I think is more important: how do local museums contribute to a sense of place on a community by community basis? That is, not how the Metropolitan Museum of Art helps define New York City for visiting museum-goers, but how someplace like the White County Historical Society contributes to a sense of place in Cleveland, Georgia for its residents.

That local question, however, is harder to answer.

In the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, two different lines of inquiry were followed in the survey: parents of minor children received a set of questions that were explored earlier this year on The Data Museum, and all other respondents received two open-ended sense of place questions. (Note: the fact that parents of minor children were not included in these questions shouldn't affect the results, as the questions are not related to parental status; that being said, you should still take their omission from the sample under consideration as you read this post. Methodology matters.)

To put respondents in the mindset to answer that local sense of place question, they were first asked to consider how museums contribute to the sense of place of the destinations they visited when traveling. After that "warm up" question, they were ready to tackle the harder question asking them to reflect on how their local museums may or may not contribute to sense of place in their own community.

A Sense of Place When Traveling

First up, the numbers. Two-thirds of respondents  said yes, museums absolutely contribute to the sense of place in communities they visit. Another third responded in ways that were not clear (I'm a conservative coder, so while most probably agreed, if they were not clear then I didn't code it), and only 2% of respondents disagreed and didn't think museums contributed at all.

Given the clear, large majority agreed, it begs the question of why they felt this way. It boiled down to museum-goers wanting more than a superficial experience of a place. Instead, they wanted to dig deeper, and begin to figure out the hows and whys of a place.

In part, it was a reaction to what was described as a "mono-culture," as in this comment:

• "[Museums] help people experience something other than the mono-culture that is so prevalent in most travel scenarios--airports, hotels, stores, restaurants that are essentially the same no matter their location."

And a desire for context, as in this comment:

• "The first thing I want to do when I go to a new place is find a museum. I want to understand the history of an area, the culture, what led a city to this moment in time so I can appreciate and understand it. I want to get the city's context."

No surprise, history came up a lot. Respondents felt that understanding how a place came to be was vital to capturing that sense of place:

• "History museums are the best for contributing to a sense of place across locations." 

But a sense of "culture," loosely defined, was nearly as important.

• "Helps compare and contrast culture. Expression of what is important or valuable is elastic. Seeing that difference allows me to appreciate the connections between people."

For a significant number of respondents, however, it went beyond history, culture, and natural landscape/geography (a small number explicitly mentioned that) to gaining an understanding about the values of a community.

• "Enormously!  Get a sense of the city and what it values in the arts, politics, community concerns.  Who/what is represented/omitted?"

Ultimate, however, the underlying theme that came out of analyzing over 1,600 of these comments was that museums are about our shared humanity, wherever they are.

• "Local stories, artifacts and legends humanize history and provide the essential perspectives needed to connect to the greater human experience that we share."​

And what makes this theme of shared humanity and the human condition so important is that it is one that shows up consistently, and repeatedly, in my work … regardless of what types of museums are being considered. And I have to say, I think it is a pretty amazing thing for museums to do and to receive credit for doing.

Of course, considering how museums contribute to the sense of place to new places one visits is one thing … but what about on a local level? Does the everyday immersion of life skew one's perspective on how museums contribute to a sense of place locally? We'll look at that next.


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. 

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.