Synopsis
The Museum Experience is the first book to take the "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit. It integrates the authors' original research with that from a wide variety of disciplines as well as museum and visitor studies ranging from science centers and zoos to art and natural history museums.
Written in clear, non-technical style, The Museum Experience gives museum professionals a thorough introduction to what is known about why people go to museums, what they do there, and what they learn.
This book is an essential reference for all museum professionals concerned with communicating with the public. It has been used widely for college coursed in the United States, Canada and the UK, and has been translated into Japanese and Chinese.
[The authors] provide a valuable and useful perspective on museum visitors...[their model, the Interactive Experience Model,] represents a new and quite dynamic way of looking at the museum experience and suggests a need to reformulate how we plan exhibits, how we publicize and promote both museums and exhibits, and, especially, how we orient visitors to the museum. [t]he book is very readable...a very useful and thought provoking book.