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Engaging the public: Museum Victoria's future harvest exhibition

Museums have informative and interpretive roles based mainly on their collections; their work being targeted at the various communities they serve. This chapter examines the long and the short-term challenges facing museums, and explores whether it is possible for museums to influence people's lifestyle and work habits. In the short-term, museums must provide varied experiences that will appeal to a wide audience. Museums must stimulate interest so that people become regular users. This short-term aim impinges on longer-term objectives. In considering the longer-term viability of museums four aspects interconnected factors are apparent. Firstly, museum products, for example exhibitions, must engage visitors and enhance their understandings, and in so doing, encourage return visits and attract new audiences. Secondly, museums play a vital role as institutions of research and providers for particular interests, through specialist knowledge of their collections. A museum might provide advice to the local fishing industry or assist in identifying changes in a local ecology due to, for example, a residential development. Thirdly, the question of whether museums can go further than the essentially informative roles just described? For example: 'Can museums influence people's attitudes and behaviour over the long term?' Is it possible to encourage people to consider a change of lifestyle and/or work habits? Fourthly, there is the ever-present issue concerning the long-term viability of museums and the pressures of marketing them. Unlike schools, where the student audience is a captive one, museums must continually remind their audiences of their worth and relevance through on-going promotion of their programs. Marketing is a vital part of developing partnerships with the community. A Museum Victoria project called Future Harvest inspired this chapter. The core of the project is a travelling exhibition. In each locality visited, seminars, activities and educational programs complemented the exhibitions. Another major component of the project is the website. In this article the way people learn in exhibitions and what might influence their long-term attitudes and behaviour is considered. The Future Harvest Project is described in some detail to illustrate the potential impact of Museums in society. In this case the way in which the project has encouraged people to consider changes in lifestyle or work habits.