Now that most of my site visits are complete, I have shifted my focus toward my Master's Thesis Proposal. With this in mind, I headed to the magnificent British Library today. My goal was to add to my bibliography and to find sources that may prove helpful in the future.
For those who are not familiar with the process, the way that the BL works is that you have to order your books in advance. Most books only need to be reserved one hour ahead of time but others require up to two days. You have to have a reader's card, but once you do, you can easily order your books the night before online. I ordered five Wednesday night and picked them up in Humanities 2. These rooms are almost silent and perfect for research. I skimmed through a couple of the books before hitting gold. Two books, Marketing and Public Relations Handbook: For Museums, Galleries, and Heritage Attractions and Forward Planning: A Handbook of Business, Corporate and development Planning for Museums and Galleries kept me busy most of the day.
These books, as the titles suggest, focus on marketing and strategic planning for museums. This may be as boring as watching paint dry to others, but for me it is wonderful. I have had trouble finding information like this in the past. All of the books that I read today were printed in London. It may be that I was simply ignorant of these sources, but nevertheless I have found them. Each of these books describe, in detail, the methods and best practices of strategic and marketing plans. The have provided me with a framework in which to form my thesis around. I knew that I needed a foundation, and now I have found it.
I have a bit more to do before setting off on my 25 year strategic plan, but I am starting to get a real grasp on how it all works. Next week, I have set up two rather interesting interviews. One is with the president of a "Friends Of" group whose museum was closed. I hope to learn about the challenges of keeping a site open and what it is like when it all goes wrong. I also have a meeting with a director at a local house museum who is going to help me understand the nuts and bolts aspects of running a small site on a limited budget.
My reseaerch continues to surprise me and I can not wait to see what
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