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.

“"This incarnation of Falk and Dierking's work is a valuable resource for those in the museum community and specifically those in history institutions. Similar to its initial edition, this text provides a strong foundation for new museum professionals. It also functions well as a refresher for veterans in the industry, providing varied information about current research, theory, and best practices." --Kristie Smeltzer, History News”

"..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 "...This incarnation of Falk and Dierking's work is a valuable resource for those in the museum community and specifically those in history institutions. Similar to its initial edition, this text provides a strong foundation for new museum professionals. It also functions well as a refresher for veterans in the industry, providing varied information about current research, theory, and best practices."...--Kristie Smeltzer, History News "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 "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 "...The authors' The Museum Experience (1992) has proved itself a useful guide to the structure and operations of museums, but Falk and Dierking (both, Oregon State Univ.) give solid reasons for this revision. Museum visitors have tripled in number worldwide, and the number of institutions has doubled. The authors see a "...quantum increase in related scholarship,"... and museums changing somewhat from traditional institutions that host exhibitions to institutions that host exhibitions but do not maintain collections. The authors indicate that the museum's character is changing from being "...a nicety in society to a necessity."... This book aims to enhance understanding of the museum experience, in part through a focus on organizing visitors' experience via the Contextual Model of Learning, which combines personal, sociocultural, and physical phenomena with an awareness that each visitor comes with individual experiences. The bulk of the book analyzes the museum visit--before, during, and after, with an emphasis on the latter. The last chapter, "...Beyond the Visit,"... aims at the future, with challenging goals that include promoting exchanges of intellectually important ideas, building self-actualization, and more. Most important, according to the authors, tomorrow's museum should be committed to public service and to reinventing its philosophy and practice. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals/practitioners."..--CHOICE

John H. Falk is a leading figure in free-choice learning, museum research, and science education in the United States. Currently, he holds the position Sea Grant Professor of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University (OSU) and Director, OSU Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning. He was founder and, for twenty years, Director of the Institute for Learning Innovation in Annapolis, Maryland, and held several high-level positions during his fourteen years at the Smithsonian Institution. Falk earned a joint doctorate in Biology and Education from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of over one hundred scholarly articles and chapters in the areas of biology, psychology, and education, and author or editor of numerous books, including, as author, of Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience; as co-author, with Lynn Dierking, of The Museum Experience, Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning, and Lessons without Limit: How Free-Choice Learning Is Transforming Education; and as co-author, with Beverly Sheppard, of Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Business Models for Museums and Other Cultural Institutions.Free-Choice Science Education: How We Learn Science Outside of School is one of the many books he’s edited. Falk received a 2010 John Cotton Dana Award for Leadership from the American Association of Museums, the highest honor bestowed upon someone from outside the museum field who exhibits outstanding leadership and promotes the educational responsibility and capacity of museums.
Lynn D. Dierking is Sea Grant Professor in Free-Choice Learning, College of Science, and Interim Associate Dean for Research, College of Education at Oregon State University. Dierking earned a doctorate in Science Education from the University of Florida in 1987. Her research focuses on lifelong learning, particularly free-choice, out-of-school time learning (in after-school, home-, community-based, and cultural contexts), with an emphasis on youth, families, and community, particularly those from poor and/or historically under-represented groups. Dierking has published extensively and serves on editorial boards for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, the Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, and Afterschool Matters. Along with John Falk, she created the Science Learning in Everyday Life section of the journal Science Education, which she co-edited with him for over a decade. In addition to books she has written with Falk, she also has co-authored/co-edited three other books—Questioning Our Assumptions from the Start: An Introduction to Front-End Studies in Museums, Collaboration: Critical Criteria for Success, and The Handbook of Small Science Centers. Dierking received a 2010 John Cotton Dana Award for Leadership from the American Association of Museums, the highest honor bestowed upon someone outside the museum field who exhibits outstanding leadership and promotes the educational responsibility and capacity of museums.

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