Beyond Cypriot State Museums’ Gates: Museum Employee Perceptions on Visitation Challenges and the Role of Marketing as the Path Forward

This article is an account as much as possible complete of the activitiesimplemented by the author and of the results achieved in the three-year period(September 2017 – September 2020) while heading the Directorate-Generalof Museums under the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities(MIBACT). It is even a first opportunity to express his conviction, graduallyreached in these years, that the evolution of state museums can offer insightsto improve other areas of government intervention in culture. The significantsocial, cultural, and economic growth of reformed museums undoubtedly resultedeven from some experimental changes: a governance model inspired bythe private organisations, networks based on common quality standards sharedacross regions, provinces, and municipalities of the Italian Republic.The data and events in the last three years clearly outline how high-level,transparent selection procedures, greater autonomy for museum directors,relying on external experts when needed, and streamlining many procedurescan benefit museums as well as other cultural institutions. Municipal theatres,for example, or 'enti lirici' (Lyrical institutions in the form of foundations),large festivals, and orchestras; together with museums, they arealmost exclusively supported by public money.According to the data in the following pages, up until the beginning ofthe COVID-19 pandemic, the reformed state museums represented 27 billioneuros per year in revenue for the country (2018 data; this figure certainlyincreased in 2019). These revenues are the result of the related industriesof the more than 240 million euros per year spent by the millions oftourists who visit our country (in 2018, 24 million out of 123 milliontourists, i.e. one out of five, said their first reason for visiting Italy was wanting to see one or more state museums). During the three-year period,tourists represented only half of museum footfall: it is clear the significantgrowth of new museum visitors is represented by Italian citizens.In the current scenario and the still unclear pause for international masstourism we need to plan an alternative emergency financing system. Clearly,those museums and institutions that purposefully continue being state-ownedwill still need the State's support to guarantee their operating resources.Overall, considering the sector's social and economic impact, the preparationof a large part of younger generations (too often employed on precariousand underpaid contracts ), and the praiseworthy efforts made so far by thereform, a law should create a framework for a better governance in thecultural sector. A transversal, organic law for museums and every sector ofthe country's cultural policy would be desirable, considering the sector's essentialrole for the country's social and economic restart.

The aim of the article is to study the peculiarities of interpretation of the cultural heritage, using the case of the Ethnographic Open Air Museum of Latvia as a basis for research. The methods used in the research are the review of documents and theoretical literature, observation, and case study. Latvian farmstead with its architecture and design is included in the Latvian Cultural Canon; therefore thorough studies of such units would promote the development of the cultural education potential in the society. There are some authentic examples of the wooden building ensembles from Vidzeme, Zemgale, Latgale and Kurzeme in the territory of the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia. The Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia corresponds with the criteria of an Open-air museum: it comprises the exhibition of several buildings, as well as reconstructs and reflects the content of the daily lifestyle of previous generations. There are both collective and individual services available here, where visitors can organize their visit there depending on their interests. Possession of previous information of what is being exhibited in the museum, and the depth of preliminary knowledge of the museum’s visitors can have a significant effect on the content of the communication process in the museum. If the visitors represent a group of specialists of one sector or another, then according to the level of competence of the public some specific terminology is used in communication. Otherwise the interests of the visiting persons are not completely satisfied. Whereas, in the event of a lack of knowledge the museum personnel should select the appropriate lexicon and volume of information, which doesn’t exhaust their visitors but promotes thorough studies of the cultural heritage. Under these circumstances the possibilities for interpretation of the museum collections are of significant importance, because a visitor needs external assistance in order to absorb in the content, shades of the exhibition, in order to get to the bottom of it and to accept the newly discovered values. Museum visitors, who haven’t applied for a guided tour, get their views independently, observing the museum articles, comparing the seen with their previous experience or seeking its confirmation / generalization, getting involved in the verbal communication with the museum employees as much as it is possible. All of it together creates an emotional background of the ongoing situation. An empirical observation is organized analogously; a researcher gets some impression, information and knowledge, facts, putting them down in the minutes, and supplementing them with some notes and comments right after the observation is completed regarding the problems of interpretation of the cultural heritage set in the objective of the research. Interpretation of the cultural heritage is an individual action because it depends on the preliminary knowledge, interests of museum visitors, the aims of their visits, the specifics of exhibitions, style of communication in the museum. The peculiarities of interpretation of the communication and cultural heritage of the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia are associated both with positive (the availability of preliminary information on the museum and exposition, varied infrastructure and amenities for visitors, the possibility of communication with the museum employees in its territory, the horizontal direction of communication, a possibility to interact with the museum objects, etc.), and negative aspects (unavailability of printed materials, a lack of descriptions under the museum exhibits, the communication limited by time, etc.).

There is a clear need to consider the cultural industry as a holistic system that emerged as a result of the relationships and interactions of different markets. The cultural industry is becoming a model for understanding the changes in other areas of human activity. This is a consequence of the increasing role of symbolic creativity and (or) information in social and economic life. The article analyzes the conceptual apparatus of the system of cultural services. There are revealed the apparatus’s existing imperfections, which can be eliminated under the condition of legislative regulation. This research is purposed to conduct a quantitative analysis of the functioning of Russian cultural institutions in modern conditions. The cultural industry is a complex business structure interested in making a profit by producing and distributing cultural texts. The results of the last 25 years of Russian cultural history are reflected in the figures given. The analysis showed that, in general, the number of cultural institutions tends to decrease. Only the number of theatre-goers and museum visitors has increased, while other segments of the cultural sphere have reduced their numbers. The most stable are the performance indicators of children’s music schools. The functioning specifics analysis allowed to identify the dominant trends in the development of the modern Russian cultural industry, which systematically change its design, landscape and principles of operation. These are exogenous structural transformations, endogenous processes of culture, and transformations in the field of financing and administration by the state. The article notes that promising directions of the cultural industry development should include its transformation, aimed at meeting the needs of the market and the state, and contribute to the formation of a national economy congruent with the needs of the consumers. Basing on the findings of the research, it is possible to forecast the cultural industry development and further elaborate the set of mechanisms supporting it, which will create prerequisites for the revival of the regional economy and sustainable economic growth of the Russian Federation.

"MADE IN MAINE”: A PROFESSOR’S PERSPECTIVE HOWARD P. SEGAL Since beginning to teach the history of technology more than a decade ago I have repeatedly taken classes to nearby museums and historic sites. I have done so not because of any prior expertise in material culture but because of a simple desire to complement and enhance class readings, lectures, and discussions. Even at the outset of my career it seemed to me obvious that seeing tools and machines firsthand and, if possible, in operation made more sense than merely reading about them or seeing pictures or slides. Despite the financial and organizational problems of such ventures and, in the case of the University of Michigan, the surprising contempt on the part of other historians for these field trips as allegedly devoid of intellectual merit, I have never regretted these class outings. Indeed, many of my students at Michigan, at Harvard, and more recently at Maine have rated them among the highlights of my courses. By requiring my students not only to visit the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village or Lowell National Park or Slater Mill or Boston’s Computer Museum or the Maine State Museum (MSM) but also to write papers about their experiences, I have, I believe, raised their visual literacy along with their understanding of technology’s past. As one student wrote of her experience at the Maine State Museum, “I honestly believe that I gained more from this museum visit than any others [here or elsewhere] simply because I approached the visit with a purpose other than entertainment.” I have now taken three classes ofbetween fifteen and thirty students apiece to the “Made in Maine” exhibit. In addition to the excellent (free) visitor’s guide to the exhibit, my students are required to read two provocative and perceptive articles: George Basalla’s “Museums and Technological Utopianism” and Larry Lankton’s “Reading HisDr . Segal, associate professor of history and director of the Technology and Society Project at the University of Maine, is the author of Technological Utopianism in American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) and coauthor, with Alan Marcus, of Technology in America: A Brief History (San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989).© 1990 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/90/3103-0006$01.00 463 464 Howard P. Segal tory from the Hardware.”1 The first article raises important questions about the display of technology in museums and historic sites and about the overt and covert messages given to usually unknowing visitors, above all the alleged equation between technological progress and social progress, and the frequent accompanying endorsement of the various industries and companies manufacturing and/or donating the items on display. The second article raises equally significant questions about how much visitors to these institutions can really learn, depending on their existing knowledge, values, and perspec­ tives, and on their understandable attraction to objects that already mean something to them. These readings better prepare my students to evaluate “Made in Maine” and any other exhibits in technology, science, and even art that they may someday see. Most of my students are from Maine, and some had gone as children to the MSM, which opened in 1971 as New England’s only state museum. But the 1983 construction and 1985 opening of the “Made in Maine” exhibit so transformed the MSM that it no longer presents what those who visited the institution earlier recall. This is unfortunate insofar as it is always interesting to have students make comparisons where appropriate, but it is surely a small price to pay for the changes that were necessary to make the museum the exciting and enlightening place it has since become. Not all of my students have uniformly praised the exhibit. Yet no student, as far as I can tell, has found it boring or uninformative, and the vast majority of students have liked more than disliked it. Their likes and dislikes about the exhibit fall into three major categories: the displays themselves, the relationship between those displays and their personal and familial experiences as Mainers and as New Englanders, and the messages and information about technological...

The object of the particular research is involvement of students in informative stockbuilding of a regional museum during research practice. The aim of the research is to carry out evaluation of this form of involvement and its advantages: using discourse analysis (Jean Liotard); putting forward particular indicators; as well as applying several communication theories (Nikolai Nikishin, Yuri Lotman, Peter van Mensch); and regarding virtual museum as a special communication system based on non-verbal communication of visitors with exhibits. Possible benefits of the museum in this evaluation are of minor importance. The most significant aspect is to reveal student's (museum employee’s during the research practice) as 'sender’s' role in cognition and non-verbal communication with the addressee or the museum visitor. It is demonstrated in coordinated and still independent work, frequently oriented towards self-initiative, creative solutions based on particular knowledge and simultaneously initiating acquisition of new information, as well as promoting development of skills. These skills include communicating with an interviewee; carrying out content analysis of media text, identifying features of stereotypical thinking; creating brief but still informatively capacious description of an exhibit. The use of digital tools during the study process is completely related to scientific activities of academic staff in the implementation of research projects oriented towards innovations as well as provision of stable feedback. If the research is carried out in tight relationship of scientists and students; everyone wins: students help academic staff (thus create conditions for their own research), carry out creative work, make own discoveries, because materials necessary for research are already collected and accordingly supplied; while academic staff develops students' professional competences by coordinating practical work, following their theoretical knowledge, skills and abilities, promoting creative solutions and thus educate new generation of scientists tempered in performing preparatory actions and open for innovations, elaboration and implementation of own creative research projects.

A Museum is a place to collect, treat, store, and exhibit objects of cultural heritage coming from different times. The museum is also used as a means of education, research, and entertainment. In Banda Aceh city, there are two museums that can be visited, namely Aceh Tsunami Museum and Aceh State Museum. The number of visitors to the Aceh State Museum is still fewer than visitorsof Aceh Tsunami Museum. This is because the visitor’s interest in the museum is fewer from the Aceh Tsunami Museum, it is clear that the Aceh Tsunami Museum has a good building, and the curiosity of past tsunami events makes visitors more interesting. However, like a museum that stores and exhibits Aceh culture, the Aceh State Museum is also very important to know. This study aims to predict the number of visitors to the museum in the future to anticipate the possibility that occurred in the future. Forecasting the number of visitors to the State Museum of Aceh in the future will use decomposition method because the plot of data the number of visitors of Aceh State Museum produced is a pattern of seasonal data. The data used are data on the number of visitors to Aceh State Museum from 2008 until 2014. The method of decomposition forecasting consists of two models, namely multiplicative model and additive model. Based on the best model, the number of visitors to the museum in 2015 is predicted. Method of additive decomposition model is the best model with the smallest error value,MSE = 149.098, MAE = 269, MPE = −5.4 and MAPE = 17.9. The result of prediction the number of visitors of Aceh State Museum in 2015 increased by 29% from the number of visitors of Aceh State Museum in the previous year.

Along with the trend of experience economy, visitors? affective experiences have been greatly emphasized. The deepest affective experience is ?qualia?, which is defined as a profoundly touching feeling with happiness and durable memory. Qualia experience, which add extra values to products and brands, have been a heated issue in many areas, especially in cultural and creative industry as well as in tourism industry. Although affective inspiration is the most essential value of museums, qualia experience is the concept rarely applied to the field of museum visitor study. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the museum visitors? qualia experience, concerning how do visitors feel, rather than what do they think or have learned. The study adopts National Museum of History, Taiwan, as a case study, in order to fully investigate visitors? qualia experience in the context of the museum. National Museum of History has the history of more than sixty years and is one of the most popular museums in Taiwan. 10 museum visitors and 11 museum volunteers have been interviewed along with the data collection of field observation, photos and the museum documents. The results of the study reveal six heartfelt dimensions including 12 touching factors of triggering visitors? feelings. Suggestions are also made regarding how to improve museum visitors? affective experience. The contributions of this study are twofold. In theory, this study proposes the ideas of qualia experience may shed new light on the discussion of museum visitors study. In practice, the results of the paper suggest museums how to enrich and enhance visitors? qualia experience in the future

Fashioning the Curator: The Chinese at the Lambing Flat Folk Museum

To improve inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWD), it is important to create suitable physical and social environments. This can be done by improving awareness about disability, specifically for employees working in the service and cultural sectors. Virtual reality (VR) simulation can be advantageous by providing an engaging experience highlighting physical accessibility issues, as well as social interactions with virtual avatars. This study’s objective was to validate the content of two disability awareness VR scenarios in museum employees and individuals with disabilities in terms of perceived usefulness. Five PWD and seven museum employees experienced two VR scenarios illustrating a museum visit for a person with low vision or using a wheelchair. The scenarios consisted of different scenes such as finding an accessible entrance and interacting with virtual employees. Participants were interviewed about their experience, with questions related to the realism of the scenarios and their perceived usefulness. Four main themes were identified specifically: emotions, experience, usefulness, and realism. Our scenarios were seen as useful in describing social and physical barriers experienced by PWD. VR can be a valid tool to promote disability awareness among employees in a sociocultural setting, representing a step towards the inclusion of PWD.

This study identified research trends, intellectual connections, and social connections in the field of museum visitor experiences. It also outlines future research to understand existing scientific research and shed light on key areas of research. The study reviewed 407 articles published in peer-reviewed journal articles, which were generated from the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis software VOSviewer and Harzing POP were used. Citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, bibliometric coupling, and co-occurrence analysis have been employed. Findings highlight the need for increased representation from scholars in the Global South to ensure a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of museum visitors’ experiences worldwide. Nine key research areas for future studies were identified: sustainability, mixed reality, social media, accessibility, emotion, co-creation, interpretation, exhibition, and museum visitors’ experience and engagement. The results benefit stakeholders and researchers by allowing them to stay informed about the latest developments and breakthroughs in the global academic landscape and visitors’ experiences in museums.

The phenomenon of an increase in foreign tourist visitors in the North Sulawesi Province State Museum is an urgency factor to do this research as a form of evaluation of consumption patterns related to sustainable behavior when visiting, especially in crowded situations with low levels of supervision. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which visitor value consumption takes a role in museum sustainability through intention to comply. Primary research data obtained from questioners, observations, and interviews with the accidental sampling method on 100 respondents of foreign tourists. This research uses a quantitative approach SEM - Smartpls 3.0 which is assessed through a Likert scale. The results of statistical data analysis show that motivation, consumer perceived value, and satisfaction significantly influence the intention to comply with foreign tourists on the rules in the museum and consumer perceived value is the dominant variable affecting satisfaction, therefore the museum is obliged to manage and facilitate consumption value through visitor perceptions museum.
 Keywords: Museum visitor motivation, Consumer perceived value visitors, Museum visitor satisfaction, Intention to comply museum visitors

Computer graphics and technologies have currently come a long way from engineering methods of environment and space parameter calculation. In the spheres of light engineering and lighting design, it is time to switch to modelling of illumination using mainly graphic lighting effects and imagery rather than digital values. Such transfer is impossible without trying to form the methodology and recommendations for 3D modelling of illumination. The authors of this article attempt to describe the key approaches to 3D modelling of museum illumination using contemporary software. The operating lighting installation of one of the halls of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is used as an example. Based on the achieved results of the research, we tried to describe the methodology and to provide recommendations for quality design and modelling of illumination in any exhibition spaces. The described methodology may be useful both for lighting engineers, architects, designers, and for curators and museum employees. The former may use the methodology for technical approach and implementation of museum illumination while the latter may use it to find a common language with the former and to compile more accurate terms of reference for them.

TUİK’in verilerine göre Türkiye’de 2010 yılında 185’i devlet, 149’u özel olmak üzere toplam müze sayısı 334 iken bu rakam 2017 yılında 199’u devlet, 239’u özel olmak üzere toplamda 438’e ulaşmıştır. Bununla birlikte Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı’nın verileri de Türkiye’de artan müze sayısıyla birlikte ziyaretçi sayısında da önemli bir artış oldu-ğunu göstermektedir. Nitekim bu verilere göre 2000 yılında 6.887.344 olan müze ziyaretçi sayısı nispeten devamlı bir artış göstererek 2018 yılı itibariyle 28.169.615 kişiye ulaşmıştır. Tüm bu gelişmelerden hareketle araştırmanın amacı Türkiye’de müzelerin eğitimsel işlevine, kullanımına ve genel olarak müzelere ilişkin müze uzmanlarının düşüncelerini anlamak, anlamlandırmak ve değerlendirmektir.Araştırma Türkiye’nin farklı şehirlerindeki özel ve devlet müzelerinde görev yapmakta olan 12 müze uzmanıyla gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırma, nitel araştırma deseniyle gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmadan elde edilen veriler nitel veri toplama yöntemlerinden biri olan görüşme yoluyla edinilmiştir. Verilerin analizinde ise nitel veri analiz yaklaşımların-dan tümevarımsal analiz kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda Türkiye’de özel müzeler başta olmak üzere müzelerin eğitimsel faaliyetlerinin artış gösterdiği ancak özellikle okul gruplarının yaptıkları müze ziyaretlerinin öğretmen, öğrenci ve müze uzmanlarından kaynaklı birtakım nedenlerce yeterince verimli geçmediği tespit edilmiştir. Verimli bir müze ziyareti için ise ziyaretçilerin müze ve içeriği hakkında ziyaret öncesinde bir ön hazırlık yapması gerektiği ve MEB’in müzeler ile yeterince iş birliği içerisinde olmadığı ortaya çıkmıştır.

Popular culture is a mass culture which develops with the culture industry. It is more is more interesting to explore the benefits to the community rather considering it as an art form. Cultural erosion in which strong structures are suppressed and the weak structures disappear are not significant. Popular culture is directed by the directors who were educated with advanced and intensified techniques; and who do not have economic concerns. Popular culture appeared in Turkey and began to show its impact with the westernization movements in music. The closure of places of workship, the tekke and zaviye, where religious music was played, the repressive and insulting attitutudes towards the public and Ottoman classical music and westernization policies created an emptiness and obscurity in the musical background of the Turkish people. As a result, the work of the culture industry, which was equipped with advanced administration and marketing techniques, became easier. This period should be called the era of culture industry. It can be said that this era was highly Music Culture Of Islamic Civilization And Popular Culture In The 21 st Century In Turkey 820 influenced by the spread of the connection to the internet in every house. From the sale of millions of popular music albums in the past today sales do not reach even half million. The culture industry now has control over radio and TV broadcasts which were common communication tools in the old culture industry periods, so it can be said that audiences are manipulated via these communication tools. However, the expansion of the internet has created an environment where audiences have the choice. Although popular culture provided certain technical advancements, it also caused corruption in music. In this paper, we will examine the factors that have affected the development of oriental music in relation to religious music; we will discuss today’s popular culture elements and the definition of popular culture in the 21st century.

The article analyzes the heritagization of industrial culture in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts from the early 20th century until the 2010s. It is based on participant observation, analysis of media discourse, and 24 semistructured interviews with local historians, museum employees, and other agents of industrial heritagization, collected between 2016 and 2021. The article argues that changing political, social, and cultural contexts, as well as the shifting balance of power between the main organizations for heritage preservation has resulted in the selective representation of the region's past. It demonstrates that preservationist and utilitarian (political or economic) approaches have been dominant, and that future-oriented initiatives are still few and far between. The authors argue for the need for more forward-oriented thinking in dealings with the present and future of Donbas's industrial heritage.