The Engaging Museum. Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement, 2005, 288 p. -

This very practical book guides museums on how to create the highest quality experience possible for their visitors. Creating an environment that supports visitor engagement with collections means examining every stage of the visit, from the initial impetus to go to a particular institution, to front-of-house management, interpretive approach and qualitative analysis afterwards. This holistic approach will be immensely helpful to museums in meeting the needs and expectations of visitors and building their audience base and includes: chapter introductions and discussion sections; supporting case studies to show how ideas are put into practice; a lavish selection of tables, figures and plates to support and illustrate the discussion; boxes showing ideas, models and planning suggestions to guide development; an up-to-date bibliography of landmark research.This book offers a set of principles that can be adapted to any museum in any location and will be a valuable resource for institutions of every shape and size, as well as a vital addition to the reading lists of museum studies students.