41st International Museum Day "Museum Network: New Paths, New Visitors

41st International Museum Day "Museum Network: New Paths, New Visitors

Motto explanation for the 41st International Museum Day on Sunday, 13 May 2018

"Museum Network: New Ways, New Visitors"

Every day, museums open their doors to visitors. They come alone, with family, with friends or in groups. They are welcomed, guided, informed, entertained. They can look, marvel, listen, participate and learn.

The reason for a visit to a museum is the collections. However, they do not open up by themselves; education is necessary. This occupies a central place within the museum's work and also aims to attract new visitors who have not yet become regulars. At the same time, museums are social places. They offer space for communication and exchange. Today, museums present themselves in a diverse and creative way - both in analogue and digital space. With high-quality offers, they try out new ways. They arouse curiosity for their collections, enable exciting discoveries and promote creativity and knowledge. They build networks, inform and fascinate also with the help of modern media and thus open up new approaches to their topics and to the exhibited objects.

The motto of the 41st International Museum Day "Museum Network: New Ways, New Visitors" offers a wide range of opportunities to connect. Every museum can participate in this special day with its exhibitions and its event offers. Analogue or digital, there are no limits to the imagination and inventiveness of museum staff in their search for new audiences. Find your idea and join in: Museum Network: New Ways, New Visitors

Suggestions for actions

• Welcome your guests in a special and personal way. Grant free admission or let visitors decide for themselves how much the visit is worth to you.
• Show visitors that they are important and are taken seriously. Offer the opportunity for personal exchange, collect feedback, suggestions and ideas for your work.
• Use social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to engage in dialogue with your visitors. Invite them to share their best museum visit, favourite object, etc. on social media.
• Museums maintain city labs and let citizens do research. Communicate what opportunities for participation your museum offers.
• Use International Museum Day to break new ground. Try out social media. Our social media campaign for International Museum Day 2018 offers a wonderful opportunity. You can find more about this as well as further suggestions, tips and mediation concepts at museumday.com
• Show that museums are inclusive places that do not exclude anyone. Offer guided tours in different languages. Invite people with disabilities to special events. Give them a look behind the scenes: in the workshops, the depots, at your own workplace. There, too, museum work becomes visible - in a very practical way or digitally. What does it mean, for example, to digitise a collection? What information do museums record in their catalogues? How can visitors use it?
• Let visitors look behind the scenes in the digital space as well. Create a video or a photo series: A day with the director, caretaker, curator, restorer, or even in the museum shop.
• Children are the museum audience of tomorrow. Offer special programmes for different age groups. "My museum" - how would children and young people design a museum, what do they find great and what boring?
• Present your museum as part of our common European culture and history. Offer actions that point to the European heritage in your museum, city and cultural landscape. Point to the common roots, the communal and unifying aspects of our European culture. International Museum Day is part of the European Heritage Year 2018.
• Cooperate with other institutions in your area. Present your network, your partners and supporters and show what has already been achieved together and what is still to be achieved. Give your circle of friends and supporters the opportunity to introduce themselves and recruit new members. Invite cultural institutions, cultural mediators, patrons and sponsors of your museum to a special event.
• Present the museum as a cultural centre and offer a complementary cultural programme with music events, readings, film screenings, dance and theatre, etc.

International Museum Day

International Museum Day was established in 1977 by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and has been celebrated around 18 May since 1978. Since 1992, the day has been accompanied by an annually changing motto. In Germany, International Museum Day is always celebrated on a Sunday close to 18 May. In 2018, the date falls on 13 May.

Further information on International Museum Day 2018 at www.museumstag.de