ABSTRACT
Structured audience development plans and strategies for visitor learning ensure the audience is considered in all stages of the redisplay and reinterpretation of collections. The museum project team's redisplay mission is made more difficult by the multitude of different audience needs and levels of knowledge. Enhancing the visitor experience involved a number of elements, including improvements to the building and its facilities. In 2000, as part of a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) initiative, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council developed a 'national framework for learning in Museums, Libraries and Archives'. The importance attributed to meaning-making in museums is not explicit but is inferred by the way in which multi-layered interpretations are planned and executed in contemporary redevelopment philosophies. Perhaps the most practical visitor-centred goal, in terms of biological collections, is the encouragement and involvement of the public in the natural world.
