How expertise can limit museum impact: A call to rethink audience engagement

Museums are dying. Here's how they come back to life. If your museum still operates like a 20th-century archive—quiet halls, untouchable objects, gatekeepers deciding what matters—you're losing your audience and your relevance. The shift is real: today's museums aren't just collecting institutions anymore. They're platforms for dialogue, laboratories for difficult conversations, and spaces where communities reclaim their own stories. What's actually changing: Shared authority replaces authority. Communities co-create exhibitions instead of passive visitors consuming curatorial decisions. Multiple narratives break through. Instead of one "correct" story, museums now hold space for competing truths—especially around difficult histories and ongoing injustices. Experimentation becomes survival. Digital tools, collaborative storytelling, and bold creative risks aren't nice-to-haves; they're how museums stay relevant and accessible. Participation replaces performance. Museums listen first, speak second. The real challenge? This isn't just a staffing or technology problem. It requires fundamentally rewiring how museums see their role: from guardians of objects to catalysts for community understanding. The museums winning this moment aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones willing to surrender control, center historically excluded voices, and admit what they don't know. #eminspost #eminmuseum #museumlover #MuseumPhilosophy #CulturalHeritage #MuseumInnovation #CommunityEngagement #Inclusion #MuseumLeadership #FutureOfMuseums

We are excited to highlight our partnership with The International Quilt Museum (IQM)! This collaboration has allowed ReadWorks to provide museum-quality content to over 261,000 educators and more than 1 million students nationwide so far. With 92 curated texts by IQM experts on history, art, and cultural studies, there is so much to explore in our library! The IQM reading passages are perfect to support background knowledge and vocabulary for the upcoming Native American Heritage Month and offers resources for cross-curricular engagement. Explore the museum's digital galleries directly linked from ReadWorks content, and access our blog and Q&A resources to enhance your instruction. Do you know a Museum who might have great content for ReadWorks. Send us a DM! #quilts #nativeamericanheritage #reading

“Can’t anyone do it?” It is a question museum professionals hear more often than you would think. On the surface, curation looks straightforward: choose a few objects, give them numbers, write some labels, and arrange them neatly in storage or on display. But the truth is much deeper. Curatorship requires scholarship and research, collections care, audience engagement, ethics, cultural awareness, and a commitment to stewardship that stretches across generations. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Curator Core Competencies make this clear: https://lnkd.in/exP-sUU6 Curators are expected to connect history, science, and culture while also demonstrating leadership, strategic planning, and public service. They do not just preserve objects. They shape how we see ourselves and our communities, past and present. So next time you are struck by an exhibit at a National Park Service site, whether it is a moving artifact, a thought provoking story, or an invitation to dig deeper, remember that behind it stands a trained curator who has made a thousand thoughtful choices to create that experience and care for the collection. #MuseumLife #Curatorship #MuseumsMatter #CulturalHeritage #AAM

🆕 Today, we’re publishing two reports by GEM (Group for Education in Museums) and Verian Group, looking at the relationship between children and young people and museums. You can read them here: https://buff.ly/fB3lf7b What do these reports cover? The GEM (Group for Education in Museums) report covers ten case studies of museums doing amazing work to welcome children and young people of all backgrounds. You can read the thoughts of one participant of Ancient House of Thetford Life Museum’s THC Group, and the review of one parent of a participant of Derby Museums’ STEAM Creative Learning Group, on the slides below 👇 We also dive into the data with Verian’s analysis. Read some headline findings found from Verian’s focus groups and surveys with children and young people, and their parents and carers, on slide 2 📊 Image credit: Preston Park Museum

Arts Council England has published a new report, Children and Young People Engaging with Museums, produced by GEM. The research includes ten case studies and sector insights, showing the vital role of museums in supporting creativity, wellbeing and learning for children and young people. 🔗 Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/eyuCHT8v 🔗 Read Aysha Afridi’s blog: https://lnkd.in/exPstgsh

💡 Children and Young People in Museums 🏛️ These two reports by GEM (Group for Education in Museums) are really interesting- with case studies too, exploring the relationship between children and young people in museums. There is so much cross-art form (including music!) and child developmental consideration in these programmes, whilst working alongside provocative collections too, such as Early Years programmes. They play a significant role as a local stakeholder in developing cultural opportunities, but also as community conveners in these locations. I have been very lucky to have had the privileged to work in cultural education roles in museums and art collections, and I have been part of and see first hand the communities that have been built as part of these programmes. They have built family connections, developed friendships and enriched the lives of those children and young people who have taken part. Museums of all scales support equity of opportunities for children and young people- so how can we help support this work to have a wider reach? How can we enable all children to have these experiences? #museumeducation #culturaleducation #communityconvenors #museums #childreninmuseums

We welcome such a rich source of data about children and young people's views about visiting museums. It is hugely valuable to see population level data about engagement with museums by different demographic groups, which is helpful to understand who is still underrepresented in museum audiences. Much of what the report highlights about the barriers children and young people face to visiting museums and their vision of an ideal museum reflects the research that underpins the Kids in Museums Manifesto. In particular, children and young people want: 👋 welcoming spaces, 💡 a variety of ways to interact and learn - where they can take the lead, 👁️ to see exhibits that are relevant to them. We'd encourage everyone working with children, families and young people to read these reports and use our Manifesto and Self Assessment Tool to review and address gaps in their provision.

Most museum websites are missing a critical opportunity to convert online browsers into actual visitors. During our work with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, we analyzed visit pages across leading cultural institutions and found a troubling pattern: endless scrolls of unstructured information that frustrate potential visitors. Your visit page isn't just another webpage—it's your digital admissions desk. And most museums are treating it like a storage closet. We uncovered specific strategies that transform visit pages from logistics dumps into conversion engines. The most successful museums answer five critical questions before visitors even think to ask them. One surprising finding: museums seeing the highest engagement were strategically duplicating key information across their sites. Counter-intuitive, but highly effective when done right. Link to the full article in the comments.

When you walk into a museum, you see art, history, culture. What you don’t see is the data quietly shaping that experience. Every visitor survey, every click on a virtual tour, the flow of people through a gallery… it all tells a story. And when museums listen, the results are powerful: • Better designed exhibitions (because we know where people linger) • Smarter outreach (because we know who’s missing) • New discoveries (digitised collections fuelling global research) Museums are guardians of our past — but with data, they’re also designing better experiences for audiences of the future. #ArtsAnalytics #MuseumAnalytics #DataAnalyst #CultureData #MuseumsMatter #VisitorExperience

We were honoured to be invited by Arts Council England to produce new research on how children and young people engage with museums. The report, Children and Young People Engaging with Museums, brings together ten case studies and sector insights. It highlights the powerful role of museums in supporting creativity, learning, wellbeing and enrichment for children and young people of all ages. Thank you to the museums who contributed case studies: Ancient House Museum of Thetford Life  Compton Verney Derby Museums Dorset Museum & Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery Young V&A Victoria and Albert Museum The Museum of English Rural Life PK Porthcurno Museum of Global Communications Preston Park Museum and Grounds The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre ... as well as to roundtable and survey participants who shared their experiences, and to sector colleagues whose insights shaped this research. 🔗 Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/eyuCHT8v 🔗 Read a blog: https://lnkd.in/exPstgsh