Interseasonal public study at the Natural History Museum of Barcelona (Spain)

1. Interseasonal public study at the Natural History Museum of Barcelona (Spain) ECSITE ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2008 for science centres and museums Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest, 29-31 May Josep Piqué & Anna Omedes Natural History Museum, Barcelona, Spain

2. The Natural History Museum of Barcelona Pere Vivas Pere Vivas Geology Building (150 m apart) Zoology Building

3. Statistics and NHM visitors • Catalonia Region 7.000.000 inhabitants • Barcelona Metropolitan Area 3.161.081 inhabitants • Barcelona city 1.605.602 inhabitants • Barcelona tourism per year 12.290.508 visitors • Foreigners tourist (60 %)7.374.305 visitors • NHM visitors from Catalonia 0.6 % • NHM visitors from Metropolitan Area 1 % • NHM visitors from Barcelona city 1.7 %

4. Aims of thestudy Aims of the study Get to know our visitors, gender, age, country of origin, etc, Where the visitors hear about the Museum and its exhibitions Which exhibitions they visit, how long they spend in each one of them, and how much of this time they are paying attention to the exhibit

5. Which parts of the exhibition are visited and arouse more interest Which one of all the variables studied change between summer and autumn months Aims of thestudy Aims of the study

6. Exhibitions during the study period • Geology building • Geological permanent exhibition • Rocks Minerals and Fossils (650m2) • (Languages: Catalan, • Spanish and English)

7. Exhibitions during the study period • Zoology building • Zoological permanent exhibition • The Classification of Animal Kingdom (650m2) • (Languages: Catalan, Spanish and English)

8. Exhibitions during the study period • Zoology building • Temporal exhibition Origins (650m2). The origins • of the universe, of the earth, of life and of • humankind. • (Languages: Catalan, Spanish and English)

9. Collection of data Study periods presented Summer 2007 : 1st June to August 31st Autumn 2007: 15 September to 15 December Long term study All days of the week Not on free entrance days 11 am to 1 pm and 3-7pm

10. Collection of data Adult visitors chosen at random Sample size: 313(0,8 % of visitors) Spatial behaviour of visitors recorded At the end of the visit spoken questionaire: 27 questions General questions (6) - Specific questions on exhibition areas

11. Questionaire: general information • Gender • From place of origin: Locals, • Spanish or Foreigners • Age: 6 categories • Previous visits: one or more • Visit alone, with family, couple, • working group, group of friends, others • How did you get to know about • the Museum exhibitions: friend, • childhood, TV, press, street • signalling, tourist information

12. Questionaire: specific aspects on exhibitions • Time spent in each exhibition • Interest aroused by the • different interaction areas • of each exhibition

13. Visitorssample No gender difference in the two seasons visitors

14. Visitors: country of origin visitors In both seasons nearly 52% were foreigners

15. Visitor profile: age visitors Children and youngsters accompanied by adults are not included

16. Type of visit visitors Interseasonal stability in each type of visit

17. Information gathered from visitors Great importance of tourist information (46 % of visitors)

18. Exhibitions visited visitors Most visitors (summer 76%, autumn 90%)include in their visit both the Temporal and Permanent Zoology Exhibitions

19. Visit’s length Visit’s length minutes Percentage interacting with exhibition

20. The permanent Zoological exhibition is the mostatractive one. Visitors spend 35 minutesseeing,while only 23 minutes for Origins, and 20 minutes for the Geological Exhibition. Visitorsseeing all the exhibitions spend an average time of 1 h 19 minutes. Visit’s length Although being a classical one, the visitor is most attracted by the Zoological Permanent Exhibition

21. Conclusions The Museum receives a high number of foreigners (52 %). This is probably due to the fact that the habitants of visiting N.H. museums is much more common in other countries. The Museum should take this fact into acount and consider foreigners when planning exhibitions.

22. Conclusions 2.The number of Spanish non local visitors is extremely low. This Museum is definitively not an obliged visit when comming to Barcelona. Subjects of exhibitions and how we explain them should be revised.

23. Conclusions 3. Tourist information (more than 40 %) seems to be the main way to reach visitors. Presumably so because of the high number of foreigners visiting. Increase and diversifytourist information

24. Conclusions 4. Street information is much more useful then press and TV to advertise the Museum. The Museum is well know by the locals from their childwood. More effort should be made to advertise the Museum in press and TV.

25. Conclusions 5. Although very interested by the temporal exhibition, visitors still prefer the Pemanent Zoology one. Temporal exhibitions are attractive by theup to date subjects and museography. The presence of the Zoologicalcollections in the permanent exhibition arouses a lot of interest although the museography is still that of XIX century. A major renovation in the Permanent would combine both points of attraction.

26. Conclusions 6. Public is far less interested in Geology than in Zoology. Probably due to poor education at school. Major renovation of the exhibition is needed, whit integration of all disciplines. Increase in education activities based in Geology.

27. Conclusions 7. There are no differences between summer and autumn.

28. Acnowledgments: Serveis Educatius Ciut’art Thank you very much !