This is a brief summary of the historical periods described in Jon Coe's 1986 article entitled "Towards a Coevolution of Zoos, Aquariums, and Natural History Museums." Coe traces the history of exhibit design in these three types of informal settings.
This is a brief summary of a 1986 article entitled "A Process Description of Literature Evaluation, Walkthrough Post-Occupancy Evaluations, A Generic Program and Design for the City of Albuquerque," by Preiser Wolfgang and Richard Pugh. This evaluation model, commonly used in architecture, stresses the importance of making evaluation criteria explicit and involves three levels discussed in this summary.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationRichard PughPresier Wolfgang
This article describes findings from a study of over 250 professionals who deal with visitors in exhibition-type facilities. Researchers studied attitudes about exhibit evaluation, specifically about the value and funding of this research.
This is a brief summary of Jeff Hayward's article, "Research and Evaluation in Children's Museums: Negative, Positive Results" featured in the ILVS Review. This article discusses several aspects of evaluation.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationJeff Hayward
This is a summary of Roger Miles's 1986 article, "Lessons in 'Human Biology' - Testing a Theory of Exhibition Design," featured in "The International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship." In this article, Miles described an attempt to apply 11 "initial working assumptions" based on current education and psychological research to the development of an exhibit.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationRoger Miles
This is a summary of Ross Loomis's 1987 book entitled "Museum Visitor Evaluation: New Tool for Management." The book is a valuable "textbook" and useful reference for professionals in exhibition-type settings or those wanted to study visitor behavior.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationRoss Loomis
This is an excerpt from Harris Shettel's 1968 article, "An Evaluation of Existing Criteria for Judging the Quality of Science Exhibits" featured in "Curator." Shettel lists fifteen categories for judging exhibits.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationHarris Shettel
This is a section from Walter Jones's paper on exhibit development procedures he produced in 1987 as Director of the Somerset County Park Commission's Environmental Educational Center in New Jersey. This section lists the characteristics of a "good exhibit."
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Visitor Studies AssociationWalter Jones
In this article, Jacksonville State University's Stephen Bitgood and Donald Thompson discuss findings from two studies, one that evaluated how people perceive museums, parks, and zoos in terms of 27 bipolar characteristics and one that studied how a visit to a science museum effects the perceptions of respondents. In both studies, the researchers used the semantic differential survey technique.
In this article, Marilyn G. Hood, of Hood Associates, explains how specially-trained and dedicated volunteers can assist with audience studies. Hood discusses the Holden Arboretum's volunteer training program as an exemplar for this type of work.