Results Of Museum And Gallery Visitor Research

Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries has published the second in the series of reports commissioned from MORI to investigate the profile of visitors to museums and galleries in the UK.

Neville Mackay, Chief Executive of Resource, commented: "The good news is that the survey shows one third of children visiting a museum or gallery with their school choose to make a return visit. This is highly significant. But this is tempered by worrying evidence that the total volume of museum visits is continuing to decline, which is clearly a cause for some concern.

"Resource recognises the importance of on-going research both for advocacy purposes and in order to inform the development of our sector, and we are committed to creating a significant body of research and other evidential material. Resource will therefore continue to produce an annual visitor survey which, from next year, will also cover libraries and archives."

Copies of this report, Visitors to Museums and Galleries in the UK, are available free of charge from Sarah Woodward on 020-7273 1458 or email [email protected]. http://www.resource.gov.uk/reports/mori3.pdf

Technical details

Visitors to Museums & Galleries in the UK reports the findings of research conducted by MORI on behalf of the Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Two research studies were undertaken: The first, conducted in November and December 1999, involved research designed to track the UK public's museum and gallery visiting habits, following a similar study carried out during February 1999. The research was conducted through face-to-face interviews among a nationally representative sample of 5,011 adults in the UK. Fieldwork was between 20 - 30 November and 2 - 7 December 1999. The second, conducted between January and February 2000, concerned the attitudes of schoolchildren in England and Wales towards museums and galleries. The questions were placed on MORI's National Schools Omnibus. Interviewing was carried out through self-completion questionnaires among classes in 115 schools in England and Wales. In total 2,531, 11-16 year old pupils participated in the survey. Fieldwork was conducted between 17 January and 29 February 2000.

Press copies of the full report are available from Emma Wright, Press Officer, on 020-7273 1459. Resource is a new strategic agency working with museums, archives and libraries across the UK. It replaced the Museums & Galleries Commission and the Library & Information Commission in April 2000. The Resource website can be found at www.resource.gov.uk