Routledge The Museum Experience Revisited

The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit when it was first published in 1992, The Museum Experience revolutionized the way museum professionals understand their constituents. Falk and Dierking have updated this essential reference, incorporating advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years. Written in clear, non-technical style, The Museum Experience Revisited paints a thorough picture of why people go to museums, what they do there, how they learn, and what museum practitioners can do to enhance these experiences. Review "I was new to the profession when I encountered John Falk and Lynn Dierking as they set out to write the first edition of this important book. It helped the museum profession elevate their thinking about the importance of audience at a time when the visitor was thought to be the lesser element of a three part equation with the object and the authority of the institution given much more importance. Falk and Dierking in their persistence helped all of us even the equation. And now we all are much more mature, the field generally recognizes the audience as an equal partner. Falk and Dierking in reissuing this book with new writing elevate the discussion to a new more holistic level of consideration. They are again moving the intellectual bar upward." --Elaine Heumann Gurian, Senior Museum Consultant "The Museum Experience Revisited will be as powerful a tool for all museums and science centre professionals for the next twenty years as The Museum Experience has been since 1992. It has the fragrance of wisdom and the texture of common sense. I cannot see how anyone in the museum field could possibly survive without reading it." --Professor Per-Edvin Persson, Director of Heureka, The Finnish Science Centre "By updating their seminal work, Falk and Dierking have made The Museum Experience Revisited a must read for museum professionals who want to have the greatest impact on their visitors. With new references to social and digital media, insights into visitor motivations and learning, and suggestions for practitioners, it's again among the most influential of resources." --Cynthia Vernon, Vice President of Education and Guest Programs, Monterey Bay Aquarium "The first edition of this book made me--and many others--fall in love with museum work. This new edition pushes all of us to work with more sensitivity and nuance to make museums as useful and compelling as possible. " --Nina Simon, Author of The Participatory Museum and the Museum 2.0 blog "A museum should be more than a room filled with old stuff. In The Museum Experience Revisited, the modern purpose of the museum and how it must be a place of education and history go together, as John H. Falk & Lynn D. Dierking touch on how the museum should seek to be something experienced instead of simply visited. Studying modern museums and changing trends, The Museum Experience Revisited is a must read for those with a strong curiosity in museums and life, and those who serve as administrators for them." --The Midwest Book Review "Like a classic rock album that has been digitally remastered, much of the core of the Museum Experience Revisited is reassuringly familiar and reinforces some of the beliefs and practices that are now well established in the field of Museum Education. However, the new research presented amounts to more than a couple of additional bonus tracks and a shiny new cover. For newcomers to visitor studies, the book provides an invaluable summary of what research has been conducted in the audience research field over the last thirty years...For those of us who have been following Falk and Dierking's research for some time, [this book] is a welcome addition to their body of work that usefully addresses the challenges that both museum researchers and practitioners face today." --David Francis, Visitor Studies "The authors' The Museum Experience