The “Museum Constant”: One-third plus or minus a bit

This paper explores the question “What proportion of the local population can museums expect to attract?”, using data on museum visitation collected by means of a population-based sample survey repeated each six months from July 1991 to February 2004 in Sydney, Australia. The links between reported museum visiting and self-described personality attributes are also explored. The findings suggest that there is a limit to the audience for museums and that this limit appears to be driven by people's preferences for conceptual cognitive activity.