Bernard ? Here's the quick answer: Online experiences and availability don't cannibalize physical visits.
That you're still having this conversation is, um, unfortunate. I think most staff would acknowledge that books ? with their incredibly high resolution images and detail that can be copied and reused ? have never been a deterrent to exhibits. Your digital presence, website, publications, whatever, is scarcely different. But you asked for quantifiable information rather than pontification. ;) Paul Marty has a pretty good paper on the topic at <http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/106394/1/marty_mwmv_part1.pdf>. He even has tables for the text-impaired amongst our colleagues. The paper references great sources (which will lead to other quantified information). Quoting from the paper: "?The concern focuses on whether museums providing online access to their collections will see a corresponding decrease in physical visits. At some stage in the planning process, someone usually asks, ?if visitors can access our digital collections using the Internet, will they still come to the museum in person?? The commonsense answer to this question is that, to the best of current knowledge, online visitors are also physical visitors. Logically, this makes sense; no one asks: ?If people can look at pictures of beaches online, will they still vacation in Florida?? In theory, the ability to access virtual museum resources online should serve as a lure, encouraging potential museum-goers to visit the physical installation. But is this true? Haley Goldman and Wadman wrote, ?The relationship between virtual museum sites and physical sites has not been extensively researched. [...] Museum Web site staff that we spoke with felt that the museum Web site boosted attendance for the physical museum, but they had no concrete evidence to prove it. While there are no studies disproving the commonsense approach, one can always have more studies with solid, detailed data that backs up this theory? (Haley Goldman and Wadman 2002; cf. McKenzie 1997). Recently, a number of surveys have provided compelling evidence that online museums actually drive physical museum attendance instead of discouraging physical visits; in the majority of studies, planning a museum visit is consistently cited as the primary reason people visit museum websites (Haley Goldman and Schaller 2004; cf. Bowen, Bennet, and Johnson 1998; Chadwick and Boverie 1999). Kravchyna and Hastings (2002) found that 57% of museum website users visit museum websites both before and after they visit physical museums. Similarly, Thomas and Carey (2005) found that 70% of museum visitors specifically looked for online information prior to a museum visit, and that 57% said the information they found online increased their desire to visit the museum in person." -bw. On Jul 31, 2013, at 12:59 PM, Bernard Hamlin <Bernard.Hamlin at otagomuseum.govt.nz> wrote: > Hey there, > > I've been having a long running discussion with our team about the impact of > our website on physical visits to our building. > The rub appears to be the idea that offering a Web experience of objects and > exhibitions will cannibalise real experiences. > I'm not convinced that this is the case but I don't have any numbers, which > are important! Would anyone out there be willing to share door numbers say > before and after launching an online collection? Or a similar metric? > > Thanks > > Bernard Hamlin > IT Coordinator > Otago Museum > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://mcn.edu/pipermail/mcn-l/ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bruce Wyman bwyman at teufelkind.net
