This evaluation manual for small museums was created for the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA) as a part their Deepen the Participation of Museum Visitors, Donors and Stakeholders project funded by The James Irvine Foundation’s Arts Regional Initiative Grant. Per that grant, “SLOMA will develop methods for continuous surveying, evaluating and understanding of the Museum’s visitor needs and expectations. On-going training and reference manuals will continue to inform the staff, board and volunteers for years to come.”

This manual presents much of the material that Wendy Meluch used during workshops onsite with SLOMA staff and volunteers, including a quick introduction to evaluation overall. It features several tools that we feel can be used in-house without a professional evaluator, and provides many references for further investigation. This manual is not meant to be encyclopedic or serve as a course in museum evaluation. Our goal is to make this information easy to access and use.

At the time of this writing, there are numerous options for electronic data collection including using tablets for surveys and observational studies. No clear leader has emerged, and applications are continuously being developed and updated, as are the many possible devices that use them. A few electronic options are referenced in appropriate sections of the manual.

I am grateful to Lisa Hubbell for her excellent professional experience, and valuable help and in writing and constructing this manual. Some of the content is adapted from Lisa’s Summative Evaluation Toolkit for The Manitoba Museum, with kind permission from the staff of The Manitoba Museum. Lisa and I are grateful to Katherine Nammacher for her technical prowess and assistance with the mechanics of creating this electronic document in WordPress.

-Wendy Meluch. VisitorStudies.com

Cite this document as: Meluch, W. & Hubbell, L. (2014). Visitor Studies Manual. San Luis Obispo, CA: San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. Retrieved from https://visitorstudiesmanual.wordpress.com