Successful Annual Conference in 2022: Digital Visitor Research!

03.01.2023
Institut für Museumsforschung

The Visitor Research Network’s official founding as an association took place in August 2022. It now looks back at a successful inauguration with its first annual conference on 14 and 15 November 2022. The next meeting will be held in Berlin in April 2023.

Annual Conference on 14 and 15 November 2022 in Bonn

On two consecutive days this past autumn, more than 150 researchers specialising in visitor research met at the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn to discuss the opportunities and hurdles as well as room for potential and limitations of studying museum visits in an increasingly digitised world. These and other questions were scrutinised within the context of impulse lectures, workshops, poster walks and world café tables:

• What does a digital audience look like?
• What means and methods seem most promising or useful for studying such groups?
• And who do we consider to be digital visitors in a world in which every museum visit is inevitably infused by at least some (unconscious) use of digital content?

We were delighted by the high turnout and are grateful to all participants for such a fascinating exchange and for providing valuable insights into their work. The extremely broad spectrum of digital visitor research became clear in the process. We wish to extend special thanks to the team at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn for its exceptional organisation of this rewarding conference and for putting together an outstanding programme. Impressions from the conference and some of the poster walks and presentations will soon be available here for download.

Symposium in April 2023 in Berlin

The next meeting of the Visitor Research Network takes place in Berlin in April 2023. More information about the conference and about becoming a member of the association will soon be published.

In the meantime, if you have questions about the network or are interested in a personal or institutional membership, please email Steffen Backhaus, Institut für Museumsforschung: s.backhaus[at]smb.spk-berlin.de.