Key Findings from the 2009 Survey
- 150 museum and science center professionals, representing 110 institutions, responded to the survey.
- 26% of all respondents and 35.6% of respondents from small institutions produce no interactive computer-based exhibits per year, on average.
- 77% of respondents rate their organizations interest in improving its overall capacity to develop computer-based interactives in house as "interested" to "very interested."
- 87.8% of respondents rate the popularity of computer-based exhibits with their visitors as "popular" to "very popular."
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- Respondents cited the following three barriers to interactive computer-based exhibits as the most significant: not enough technical staff or staff time, inadequate financial resources, and general lack of in-house production experience.
- An overwhelming majority of respondents (90.9%) are “interested”to "very interested" in the open source software tools that Open Exhibits will offer.
- Respondents expressed interest in a wide variety of online and in-person training and professional development strategies.
- Only 41.4% of respondents overall and 34.9% of respondents from small museums reported having Internet access in the entire exhibit space at their institutions, which indicates that these software products will work best if they can run locally as well as on a network.
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About the Survey
Ideum and Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) worked together to develop the questions in the Interactive Computer-based Exhibits in Museums & Science Centers: State of the Field survey. Ideum posted the survey on Survey Monkey and encouraged museum and science center professionals to complete the online survey through listservs, blog posts, and email contact with professional associations. Many museum community blogs also promoted the survey. The survey was conducted in April and May of 2009. A similar survey was conducted in 2008. Its results can be found here.