Craddock Morton, Acting Director of the National Museum of Australia, made an interesting observation in conversation after launching Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums last Tuesday April 6. It's a dangerous profession, he said, referring not only to the review of the NMA and the discontinuation of Dawn Casey's services as Director, but to the fact that similar events have occurred recently at almost every major museum in Australia.
What's going on, and what does the future hold for the National Museum?
Knowledge Quest is an important research report published jointly by the Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Museum here in Canberra. I spoke to Susan Tonkin, co-author and leader of the Canberra team. A literature review of research into families at museums over some 70 years (in Britain, USA, Canada and Australia) gives a context for field research into 29 case studies of families in Sydney and Canberra who have visited one or other of the two local museums.
The result calls for action, but cleverly does not have the usual set of recommendations which can so easily be forgotten in a cobwebbed archive.
The conclusion to the report lays out the findings from the interviews like "Museums provided public spaces where parents could share community culture with their children" and suggests the implication of each finding. In this case "Museums have a role to play in presenting historic and contemporary topics in a form that both adults and children can engage with". There are 26 of these findings, ranging from the bigger issues to "Parents avoided places that were hard to supervise or had hazards" with the perhaps obvious implication "Spaces should not only allow easy supervision, but should be safe for children".
The clever part is Appendix 1: a Family-Friendliness Checklist. On the left are "Principles" under the headings Pre-visit, Orientation, Exhibit Design, Content, Labels/text, Programs, Practical considerations, Audience-specific (Infants and toddlers; Primary/secondary). Here's where the implications in the conclusion become manifest.
Being of simple mind, I chose Orientation. The first principle is "clear map with family facilities marked". In the right column is a box where you put Yes or No. The map I was given by a guide at NMA is a vertical cross-section of a circular structure laid out from left to right. All the bits of the museum are labelled, but it took the guide (who was very good) several minutes to explain to me how the map worked. Even then, when walking around the exhibits, I was quickly lost, and I had no children to look after. Tick No.
A new map is being prepared and should be ready in a month or two. Action is under way.
Take a principle like "facilitates developmentally-appropriate child-centred programs". I can quite confidently tick Yes for the National Museum, where events like the recent The Great Garden Game by Canberra Youth Theatre and the Tracking Kultja Festival in 2001, as well as the regular story-telling, place this museum at the forefront of modern practice.
Families represent 43% of visitors to NMA. 93% of families say they are satisfied or very satisfied, and 79% say they have "learned something interesting about Australian history which I didn't know before". But can the museum maintain the buzz of the first years? And will I soon be able to tick Yes in all the boxes? At the moment I have to put question marks against more than half of the implications from the research findings.
Craddock Morton says the new Strategic Plan, from July 1 2004, is designed to sustain the outward buzz by better underpinning with academic research. To do this well means money, of course. To do it really well means more money than in the past and submissions have gone to Cabinet. Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums is a great example of strong research which says Give the NMA the money it needs to do really well. Let's tick more Yes boxes next year.
I guess we'll have to do a family-friendliness checklist on the Budget in May....
And maybe a museum directors' friendliness checklist might make their profession a little less dangerous. This research shows that "family-friendly" means up-to-date, new approaches, being interactive, learning through exploring, or as one principle of exhibit design says: "encourages children to apply principles rather than just push buttons". Let's hope a new permanent director understands this as Dawn Casey did.
"Underpinning with academic research" surely means discovering more historical truths, but not to be put in glass cases in dusty corners. Sustaining the NMA's energy means ticking Yes in all the family-friendliness boxes.
For a copy of Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums contact Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, National Museum of Australia GPO Box 1901, Canberra ACT 2601. Ph: 6208 5120. Email: s.tonkin@nma.gov.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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