ABSTRACT
Parking meters, appointments, bus schedules, and lunch hours;hunger, mental fatigue, and physical exhaustion-the duration of a museum visit is related to a variety of factors that we all realize, but often seem to forget. The time a visitor spends is more than seconds, minutes, and hours; it is a measure of constraints, needs, and values. The allocation of this valuable commodity is a useful barometer to the visitor’s underlying interests, motivations, satisfactions, and dislikes. Time is, perhaps not coincidentally, the single measure most frequently used for evaluating exhibit(s) quality/effectiveness and assessing visitor behavior-the time spent in an exhibit, the time spent in an exhibition hall, the time spent in a museum. Time, as a research variable, is easy to measure, essentially objective, and theoretically nontrivial. In this paper, I will: 1) review the previous uses of time as a museum evaluation parameter and suggest some new perspectives on using time as a measure in evaluation studies; and 2) look at time metaphorically as a device for understanding museum visitor behavior.
