Museums, like any other company, have, for decades, been concerned with their bottom line. Of what the museum is outputting rather than impacting. With little results to show, perhaps museums need to take a new approach on how they base the quality of their institution. After all, the majority of museums are non-profit organizations, so besides the number of visitors per year and grant money allocated per year, what output is there really to report on? In recent years it has been noted that "new donors often choose results-orientated humanitarian causes" and museums are surely being left behind. This is not to say that people do not value the work that museums are doing, but rather that the output being published has little to show for many institutions. "People are drawn to the arts not for their instrumental effects, but because the arts can provide them with meaning and with a distinctive type of pleasure and emotional stimulation" meaning that the arts are meant to be enjoyed holistically in a spiritual, cognitive and emotional approach, something hard to document results of.
In my opinion museums need to be categorized and rated on their effectiveness of impact on their community through their exhibitions and programming, gauged on their overall emotional stimulation of visitors. Museums need to be held accountable for their presentation of collections and their overall demeanor towards their surrounding neighborhoods. Only then, in my opinion, can museums be accurately weighed and measured.
www.randikorn.com/resources/works.php
#accountabilityofmuseumstosociety #impactnotoutput #caringaboutthecommunity #numbersaren'teverything #transformingmuseumsforthebetter
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