The Visitor Studies Group

New Audiences, Different Research?
Moving into 21st Century Visitor Studies

VSG Seminar and AGM
British Library, London
13th February 2007

As museums, galleries and visitor attractions increasingly attempt to find ways to broaden the range of their audiences, visitor researchers alongside marketing professionals, curators and learning teams face new opportunities and challenges in their work

Are well-established methodologies still appropriate when we try to engage new or hard to reach audiences, or do we need to think more creatively about models of evaluation? What are the benefits and challenges with new approaches, and how do we find a balance between evaluation and research in this context?

Presentations and workshops highlighted in bold in the programme are available as downloads at the bottom of this page. 

9.30 Registration

10.00 Welcome (Nicky Boyd, VSG Chair & Roger Walshe, Head of Learning, the British Library)

10.30 'Qualitative Research: A Different Perspective' (Annabelle Phillips, Director of MORI Qual Hothouse within Ipsos MORI)

11.15 'Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss' (Susie Fisher, Director, Susie Fisher Group)

12.00 Bursary Feedback: Report from CECA Conference 2006 (Juliette Fritsch, Head of Gallery Interpretation, Evaluation and Resources, V&A and Jenni Fuchs, Visitor Studies Officer, National Museums Scotland)  

12.20 Lunch

13.10 AGM

13.30 'Visitor Research in the 2000s: are the challanges really new?' (Dr Theano Moussouri, Lecturer Museum Studies, UCL and Director of Audience Focus)

14.15 'enquire & envision' (Jane Sillis, Director, engage)

15.00 Debate

15.30 Glass of wine and networking

16.00 End of Event