Audience Research Helps Museums Make Informed Decisions

This paper deals with two major audience research projects. One is a community perceptions study conducted by telephone with citizens of St. Louis city and county in 1990 by the Missouri Botanical Garden. The second is a year-long on-site visitor study at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Both studies were designed, analyzed, and interpreted by Marilyn G. Hood of Hood Associates. Dr. Hood will present the settings in which these two projects were accomplished and describe how they were carried out; Ernestina Short, Community Liaison for the Missouri Botanical Garden, will cover using their study results to better serve their publics, and G. Donald Adams, Director of External Affairs at Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, will report on insights gained into new audiences for that museum complex.