Lynda Kelly

Consulting Young Children: Experiences from a Museum

ABSTRACT Since 1999, the Australian Museum has provided a designated play/learning space for young children aged 0–5 years. A recent redevelopment and redesign of the museum provided a valuable opportunity for a team of museum staff and university researchers to consult with young children about their experiences and expectations about this play space and the museum generally. This article reports the processes of consultation; methods used to consult with children; issues identified by the children involved; and the ways in which childrens perspectives influenced the design of the new Kidspace. In particular, the authors noted the importance of childrens journals as both a means of constructing data and as a means for reflection on the importance of social spaces in research with children. Underpinning the project was a commitment to recognizing young children as competent social actors, with the right to be consulted on matters that are important to them.

Revisioning the Physical and On-Line Museum: A Partnership with the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools.

Abstract The Australian Museum has been working with the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools over the past five years. Students aged from 5–18 years have been advising the Museum on the development of exhibitions and programs, as well as how the Museum can best use the digital environment to showcase its research and collections. This paper outlines these projects and discusses how the findings suggest ways museums could construct learning experiences that have the potential to transform young visitors through a process of changing as a person.

Cooperation, collaboration, challenge: how to work with the changing nature of educational audiences in museums

Since the publication of George Hein’s seminal work, Learning in the Museums (1998), museums have endeavoured to providing constructivist learning experiences for educational audiences. However, the nature of contemporary educational practice has necessitated that museums develop deeper and more sustained relationships with their audiences and, in doing so, presents many challenges for museums. A key component of this change is the need for ongoing and sustained consultation in an equal, respectful and two-way relationship, where both the audience and the museum are transformed in some way. This presents a major challenge for both museums and museum professionals, many of whom have long been used to a one-to-many relationship with their audiences, rather than the many-to-many model currently being championed by a range of museum thinkers.

A Review of “Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal Educational Settings”

Reviewed by Lynda Kelly Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia It was with a sense of excitement that I started leafing through the second edition of Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal Educational Settings. The 1999 edition of this book is always the first one I recommend to any new (and existing) museum evaluator as essential reading. Coming across this edition written ten years after the original has led me to reflect on what’s happened in the world of museums and, in turn, the impacts on audience research and evaluation since then. Museums continue to operate in a world of increased competition and pressures on attendance because of the proliferation of leisure choices for more sophisticated consumers and the rise of access to the internet. Funding cuts have resulted in more limited resources, requiring museums to operate on a more commercial basis and to be more collaborative through partnerships. As well, there is a need for museums to stay relevant and be responsive to pressing social and environmental issues such as climate change, population growth and sustainability, social justice, racism, and indigenous rights. These pressures have resulted in a fundamental shift for museums from being primarily curator-driven to becoming market-responsive, focusing on the needs of audiences with a particular emphasis on their learning. The most pervasive of these changes, of course, is the rise of the information age which has raised new challenges for museums, and it has been argued that museums need to move from being suppliers of information to providing usable knowledge and tools for visitors to explore their own ideas and reach their own conclusions (Cameron & Kelly, 2010) because increasing access to technologies “have put the power of communication, information gathering, and analysis in the hands of the individuals of the world” (Freedman, 2000, p. 299). Taken together, these issues present a major opportunity for audience research to play a central role in museums, given that evaluators often represent the voice of the audience in exhibition and program development and, increasingly, online programming. Therefore, it is timely that the second edition of the Practical Evaluation Guide has landed on our doorstep in a revised format, including two additional authors and updated case examples. As was the 1999 edition, the Practical Evaluation Guide is an essential resource for the beginning and experienced evaluator working in large