Muzealnictwo (Oct 2017)
AUDIENCE OUTSIDE THE MUSEUM
Abstract
Polish museums are increasingly conducting research into their audiences. Results of statistical analyses and evaluations of educational activities help museum professionals to learn more about the people visiting their museums. However, it is essential to broaden the scope of research, to differentiate the methods and tools used, and above all to systematise the work and adapt it to the requirements and reality of how institutions with various profiles function. Therefore, the question arises: how can such research be carried out on a national scale? What is the best way to support museums which function daily in different surroundings so that their audience research translates to the programme they offer, and thus help them broaden the range of their visitors in the future? At the stage of the initial long-term programme for researching museum audiences which the National Institute for Museums and Public Collections conducted in 2017, it was already possible to gather material which allows for the determination of directions of activities which, in turn, will help answer the above- -mentioned questions in the following years. On the basis of this programme, we can conclude that having introduced the idea of a museum which is open and accessible to various groups, it is now time to turn theory into practice. Apart from keeping statistics, museums should broaden their scope of research in terms of their audiences, and look at the audience in a broader perspective, not just in terms of their presence and the diversity of activities. Only then, after they have repeated the question “who constitutes the museum’s audience, and who is absent from them?”, would it be possible to determine what is indispensable to deepen the relation between a museum and its audience. Nevertheless, it will be clear whether museum professionals opt for such steps and try to learn whom they still have not met in the museum once broader research has been carried out.
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