H. Verdaasdonk

The impact of experiential variables on patterns of museum attendance. The case of the Noord-Brabant Museum

Abstract Over the last twenty years, museum attendance has grown steadily. Increasingly, participation rates are being viewed as indicators of the success and legitimacy of policy in a given field of culture. Consequently, museums have become more interested in gaining insight into factors that affect museum attendance. This paper focuses on variables that shape patterns of attendance of those who are already museum-goers. It is assumed here that assessments of the experience visitors have with museums serve to explain variations in patterns of attendance. Variables measuring museum experience range from the preference for a museums collection of modern art to specific titles to rebates on admission prices. Very probably, such variables mediate between socio-economic background variables and outcome measures such as frequency of annual museum attendance and choices of specific shows, i.e., a show documenting important events of World War II and a show presenting neo-classical sculpture. The research is exploratory in nature: it identifies a number of experiential variables and assesses their effects on patterns of attendance and selections of those who are already museum visitors. Data were collected at a Dutch provincial museum with an archeological and an art collection.

Some fallacies about the reading process

Abstract In this paper I argue that writers, critics and literary theorists have always considered reading as making direct and correct observations. I try to show that this erroneous view fulfills an ideological function. By supposing that a reader is always able to make a number of observations which are infallible, one admits that these observations are self-evident, i.e. needing no other corroboration than the readers claim that he “really” has perceived a “given” textual property. The ideological function of the (tacit) adherence to an evidence postulate is to conceal a lack of criteria for applying literary terms to texts.

The dynamics of choice behavior towards books: The role of cultural products in cultural behavior

This issue collects a number of papers on aspects of choice behavior towards books. Most of the contributors are members of the Marketing and Sociology of Books Group at Tilburg University. The fields of expertise are sociology of literature, economic psychology and marketing. The other authors in this issue are all familiar with the research done by this group. From the start the research done by the members of the group was aimed at answering questions about the functioning of literary and cultural institutions, that is, the organizations involved in the material production and distribution of books, the councils that advise national and local authorities on public subsidies for the arts, and the somewhat loosely organized group of people who seek to specify and propagate (normative) conceptions of literature in terms of which value is assigned to literary and nonliterary fiction and nonfiction. By scrutinizing the social and economic conditions under which cultural institutions operate institutional analysts have gained a better insight into the manner in which social and economic factors affect the nature of these institutions’ products: publishers’ lists, literary magazines, the assortment offered by book clubs and the collections of public libraries. Although there is still considerable interest in these issues, in the last five years the focus has shifted towards research into the various aspects of consumer behavior towards books and literary magazines. Researchers in the humanities usually regard consumer (or connoisseur) behavior towards cultural products (e.g. works of art) as being determined by the objects themselves. ‘Charismatic ideology’ is the term Bourdieu coined to designate and denounce the belief in the power of a cultural object to