INSIGHT The latest titles from your sector. Book reviews
A practical guide for museums to create a positive visitor experience
HOW I wish this handy book had been available when I ran a small inde- pendent museum. Visitors provide essential funds so ensuring that they receive the best possible experience is absolutely vital. All aspects of caring for vis- itors from before they arrive to assessing feedback when they depart are covered in an admirably clear and realistic narrative.
The book is divided into three sections: Creating the visitor experience: Manag- ing the visitor experience and Developing the visitor experience. The first section examines staffing, including managing and recruiting vol- unteers and ticketing. Some helpful guidance is given on finding and training appro- priate staff and this will be especially helpful to all small museums that are reliant on volunteers. The advantages of online ticketing mean that museums can prevent overcrowding and ensure the museum is prepared. New to me was the idea of visitor mapping. Visitors may come from very diverse back- grounds with widely different aspirations. There is a wealth of sound practical advice in- cluding a very helpful review of crisis management. Illustrative of the author’s realistic and down-to-earth approach is the suggestion that most visitors head to the toilets or café first so these need to be attractive and welcoming.
A very welcome feature is 50 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
The history and development of the processes of metadata
MAURO Guerrini has, over the last decades, played a leading role in shaping the direction of metadata creation. This breezy introduction to the subject, first published in Italian as Dalla catalogazione alla metadatazione: Tracce di un percorso, comes with a glowing endorsement from Barbara B. Tillett, who is a fellow expert in the field. Some sections in the main text were written by Denise Biagiotti and Laura Manzoni.
Mackay, Rachel. Delivering the visitor experience: How to create, manage and develop an unforgettable visitor experience at your museum. London: Facet Publishing, 2023.190 pp. ISBN 978 1 7833 0549 0 £34.99. CILIP members get 35% off.
the inclusion of case studies to illustrate points being made. These case studies are drawn from a wide variety of museums ranging from the Mary Rose museum, the Scotch whisky museum and Hidden London at the Lon- don Transport Museum. The author is also able to draw on her own experience with the royal palaces.
This is an extremely prac- tical, readable and helpful volume that deserves to be at the side of all those concerned with ensuring their visitors receive the best possible experience.
Diana Dixon
The focus of the volume is on the history and development of concepts and standards under- pinning the process of meta- data creation, which means that much space is devoted to an overview of the standards and related publications that have appeared over the last 150 years or so. The Italian subtitle probably covers the subject of the volume better than its English equivalent: Guerrini sketches an outline, which in some places feels superficial, rather abstract, and uneven in coverage. For example, RDA is discussed in four pages (Chap- ter 7), most of which is taken up by a list of commonly used fields. Yet there are also page- long enumerations of previous standards and descriptions of more recent ones that go into a level of perhaps unnecessary detail, such as for the different forms of MARC (Section 6.1). It is therefore not clear who his intended audience is. Is this aimed at budding information professionals or experienced
Guerrini, Mauro. From Cataloguing to Metadata Creation: A cultural and methodological introduction. London: Facet Publishing, 2023. 154 pp. ISBN 978 1 7833 0628 2. £40. CILIP members get 35% off.
cataloguers who may have been ‘taught the rules’ rather than the ‘conceptual basis of cataloguing’ (p. xvii)? If it is the former, it will be a tough read. If it is the latter, Guerrini’s overview puts our practice in context, though I suspect very few of us will still be in the traditional cataloguing mindset sketched at the beginning of the volume.
Danielle Westerhof Durham University
October-November 2023
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
