197-206

Next stop : “Museum". The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki is introduced to its public

• Αδάμ - Βελένη, Πολυξένη

The new permanent exhibitions of the Museum, which opened to the public on September 2006, widened the design horizon of the museum’s educational programmes. Despite the fact that many educational programmes for children were available, we realized the urgent need of an educational programme for adults.The programme was designed interactively. The adult visitors are not viewed as passive receivers of archaeological information, but are encouraged to contribute with their knowledge, life experience or ingenuity to this “game” of acquaintance with the museum’s collections. Questions and answers are constantly interchangeable in a reciprocal game, where no-one loses, but everybody wins.Keeping in mind that 1) the museums’ public is extremely diverse and unpredictable, 2) that there is a certain awkwardness of museums towards adult visitors and 3) that the acquaintance with museums rests only on a traditional - linear way of viewing, then the choice of an adult educational programme had many aims: supply of knowledge within the frame of an entertaining educational process, alternative ways of dealing with and getting to know antiquity and ancient artefacts, surpassing the linear/hierarchical model of student-teacher, expansion of the knowledge horizon, of the comprehension of artefacts and of critical thinking, development of the dialectics between the past and the present.Another aim of the adult tour programme is the completion of the ensemble of educational actions and means offered by the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. Together with the digital multimedia applications, with the Museum guidebook, and in parallel with the multiple and consecutive cultural events hosted at the Museum, our attempt to offerguidance to groups or individuals, when asked for, was more than necessary, in order to offer a complete package of the museum’s exhibition content. Thus the special conductor of the adult tour programme, apart from the simple historical-archaeological information, would also address aspects of museological concern and management of the past on a wider scale. Apart from the detailed organization and design of methodology, and then moving on to field application, systematic “contact” and promotion was organized through the media, the Ministry’s official website and a relevant leaflet. From the outset, we deemed useful to fully document all our applications on the field and advance to a validation of the programme with the voluntary involvement of participants. Thus, a sufficient population sample was available, which offers the initial results of the study.The questionnaire comprised of twelve questions, which offered quantitative data, with four multiple choice questions, four binary choice questions: yes- no, and four fields of personal information: occupation/age/gender/origin. An open field, which allowed the recording of qualitative information and critical analysis not available in the previous questions, was also present.This study presents the results given by this evaluation of the programme. As the attached tables show, useful information was obtained in terms of age, gender, educational level, individuals or institutions interested in visiting the Museum, the attitude towards multiple visits, the willingness to impart information, and the preferences towards the Museum’s schedule and visiting hours.The Adult Educational Programme was conducted for two and a half years (2006-2009), with 12,000 participants.

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία

αρχαιολογικά μουσεία, Θεσσαλονίκη

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