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Importance of museum in the society

By Omofemi Fausat Modupe

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Before the advent of modern museums, different societies adopted different ways of preserving objects and collections they held important. In Asia, precious items were deposited for safe keeping in temples, while in Nigeria, various shrines and temples in different communities, served as traditional museums. Also Obas, Obis, Emirs; palaces acted as repositories for various cultural objects. But today, museums have come to be accepted by men for safe keep, as well as preserving or protecting the objects from loss or possible deterioration.
Nigerian societies are complex in character with different languages, religions, professions, socio-cultural, political and economic backgrounds. People of all ages need environmental experience necessary for an understanding of their relationship with others and their positions in the contemporary world. Indeed museums have been a shortcut for bringing cultural items of various people to one place, thereby making it easier for one to decipher similarities and differences among the cultural items, which may suggest interaction or otherwise among societies through time.
In recent years museum have become more visitors oriented and are therefore making their collections and expertise of staff accessible in ways which support increased learning opportunities for all users, such as the families, pre-school children, students of colleges and other higher institutions, youth organizations, clubs and societies, adults, communities etc.
Museum audience are grouped into two main categories, namely visitors (museum users) and non visitors (non museums users). The most striking thing about museum visitors is that they are heterogeneous in age, background, interest, sex, physical ability, language, educational attainment, income and reasons of being in the museum. Just as a wise merchant comes to know its potential customers, the museum education officer is to effectively interpret the museum collections to its diverse audience. Understanding the various categories and characteristics of museum visitors is necessary. Hence, he or she must be able to measure, assess and evaluate the objects and audience alike.
Evaluation is used to determine the nature and extent of the knowledge gained and the assessment of positive change in the behavior of the learners, to assess whether the goal or objective of a particular programme has been met.
Evaluation can be formative or summative but the two perform different but complementary roles in education. Formative evaluation is under taken during the process of developing the programme or project. The feedback information that is gotten from such evaluation is used as an input to improve the programme further, before its final adoption. Summative evaluation is the evaluation of the total programme after it has been fully developed, testing visitors’ performance, the quality of the programme and the strategies used by the education specialists to achieve the objectives of the programme, in order to give the final verdict about the usefulness of the programme. Evaluation could also be categorised into long term and short term. Instruments of short term evaluation are pre/post questionnaires and interviews workshop, among others. Long term evaluation is used for programmes whose duration is a month and above. The instruments of long term evaluation include: statistical data to assess visitors to museum exhibition.
The museum educationists are required to promptly realize and identify the various reasons why people visit the museum which range from meeting friends, recreation, enjoyment, education, research, among others and make adequate provision to meet them. Despite that various educational programmes have been put in place to meet the changing needs of the visitors, more efforts are still required to create public awareness about the museum and its activities.
Some of the instruments of assessment and evaluation are the basic requirements needed to examine the worth and relevance of museum exhibits, programmes and strategies used. Museum educationists must ensure that they assess visitors (audience) before and after the gallery tour to confirm whether they actually gained from their visit.

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