Open Forum

We started with a guest register when our interpretive Center opened in 1994. We didn't track zip codes, but city & state (or country) of the visitor and a summary of one of two questions (i.e., favorite thing about our park / how did they find out about us). A volunteer compiled the data at the end of the year for our annual report. When we closed for renovations in late 2014, we did not put out the register when we re-opened a year ago. We developed a 10 question teacher survey that was given to educators here on field trips. That provided some very interesting results which we are now evaluating. We are currently logging some visitor data at the admissions desk and have a "favorites" question on a children's post-it note board in our exhibit gallery.

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Alan Goldstein
Interpretive Naturalist
Falls of The Ohio State Park Interpretive Center
Clarksville IN

We, too, have used a paper guest register for ages. One of the biggest reasons is that we are a free museum so there's no other way for us to gather data from our walk-in visitors (because no one is purchasing admission). We are also a historic landmark, so some feel that having an old-looking paper register adds to visitors' feelings of "stepping back in time" when they come to our building. Also I think a while back we had a disaster plan and having a sign-in book was in there as a way to know how many people/who were actually in our building should something happen. 

We ask for name, address (specifically city, state/country, zip), # in party (children and adults), and how you heard about us. We have a Visitor Engagement Facilitator who loads all the data into a spreadsheet at the end of the month and she recently started creating a visitor report to be shared with staff each month. 

The information is mostly used for grant reporting (so we can say we had XXX visitors in 2016 from XX different states and XX different countries), but we've had ongoing discussions about what other ways we might be able to use the information. For instance, we wonder how we can use data (emails, addresses, etc.) to convert free, walk-in visitors to donors or program participants, or to see how many walk-in visitors actually do convert in these ways. Having the data entered into a spreadsheet has been useful because we now manipulate it - one of the things it allows us to do that I think is interesting is to see trends in visitorship, such as the heaviest months of the year and heaviest days of the week. That info might be helpful for future decision-making about scheduling. 

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Cara Scharf
Program and Communications Manager
Wagner Free Institute of Science
Philadelphia PA

We have a paper to sign up for "speakers, receptions and other free events" sponsored by our (university) department, and do get some people to give their contact info. We offer postcards, email or both, and have more requests for email that cards. But the requests are not many.

We also have a little paper form that can be slipped into a locked box asking for very basic demographic info, but get almost none of those. 

Our space is open from both ends and not monitored except by camera, so it's really hard to get a snapshot of the audience, but it is what it is. 

Bill 

PS: I like the heading of "guess registers." (I could easily have made that typo going too fast.) About half the time when I enter an email or postal address into our mailing lists, I think I am guessing at the handwriting! People, come on, someone else has to read this!

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Bill Barrett
Director
May Gallery, Webster University
Saint Louis MO

Our guest register has spaces for date, name (optional), zip code, first visit (Y/N), how they found out about us (options to checkmark sign, news, internet, brochure, recommendation), number in group, would they recommend the site to your friends (Y/N), a space to provide their email if the y would like to receive information about programs and activities, and a space for comments.  We don't worry much about collecting much in the way of demographic information with the guest book, because that data is collected electronically when visitors pay their admission.

The zip codes and checked information are compiled each month into a database to help inform marketing.  Any emails collected are added to MailChimp so any interested visitor can receive electronic newsletters and program/event information (MailChimp also requires a zip code for verification).  Staff members read the notes section for visitor feedback, although it's value in that area is very limited--we do regular visitor surveys and we do surveys during every event and program. I guest (ha!), for us, it's one tool among many.

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Andrea deTarnowsky, Historic Site Manager
T.C. Steele State Historic Site
Indiana State Museum & Historic Sites system
Nashville IN

We ask for where people are from and compile the information annually.  We have used this information on grant applications in our community to show how high the percentage of local visitors we have.  This has helped us to receive several local grants since we have been able to show we are serving our local community.

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Kathy Johnson
Director
Flagg Township Museum
Rochelle IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2017 03:11 PM
From: Andrea DeTarnowsky
Subject: Guess registers

Our guest register has spaces for date, name (optional), zip code, first visit (Y/N), how they found out about us (options to checkmark sign, news, internet, brochure, recommendation), number in group, would they recommend the site to your friends (Y/N), a space to provide their email if the y would like to receive information about programs and activities, and a space for comments.  We don't worry much about collecting much in the way of demographic information with the guest book, because that data is collected electronically when visitors pay their admission.

The zip codes and checked information are compiled each month into a database to help inform marketing.  Any emails collected are added to MailChimp so any interested visitor can receive electronic newsletters and program/event information (MailChimp also requires a zip code for verification).  Staff members read the notes section for visitor feedback, although it's value in that area is very limited--we do regular visitor surveys and we do surveys during every event and program. I guest (ha!), for us, it's one tool among many.

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Andrea deTarnowsky, Historic Site Manager
T.C. Steele State Historic Site
Indiana State Museum & Historic Sites system
Nashville IN

We've had a paper register for the entire life of the museum (10 years). I just started as the director in September, but what I see in those registers looks like data gold to me. One of our projects for this year is to get one of our staff to take the dates, city, state, etc. and put it into a spreadsheet or our Salesforce database. We are in Arkansas, but it's apparent that we have lots of visitors from Illinois and Missouri. That tells me that investing advertising dollars in those places is worthwhile. We don't have as much traffic from Oklahoma, which geographically is surprising, but this tells me something important. I need to investigate a bit about why we don't have as much OK traffic and consider my outreach and marketing for our neighbors. 

I also track (rather informally) the traffic patterns of our visitors from our cash register, but it could also be done through the guest register summaries as well. If I can accumulate some of the past years' data, I'll be able to tell that the week between Christmas and New Years will be busy for us, but the week before Christmas is dead. That helps us with our programming, scheduling, etc. 

Because we're a historic house museum, it feels nice for people to sign our guest register. It feels like they've been invited to a nice event. :) 

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Angie Albright
Director
Clinton House Museum
Fayetteville AR
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2017 05:11 PM
From: Kathy Johnson
Subject: Guess registers

We ask for where people are from and compile the information annually.  We have used this information on grant applications in our community to show how high the percentage of local visitors we have.  This has helped us to receive several local grants since we have been able to show we are serving our local community.

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Kathy Johnson
Director
Flagg Township Museum
Rochelle IL
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There's a lot of talk about data gathering, analytics and demographics here.  One thing we've found really interesting, and something that could be used to create unique registration as well gather even more interesting data is through an online game on your museum's web portal.  Not only do you get all the data mentioned above, but it's a great tool for both outreach, and gauging interest in specific museum exhibits and projects by curating specific games in line with the content.

We recently helped the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto with a light version of this with some games based around the Cambrian era, and the various creatures that could be found back then.  They threw them up on their online arcade and now they are engaging people with them both in the museum and around the web.

There are all sorts of interesting ways to use the data you get from the game-play.

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Michael Mackay
Manager, Sales & Marketing
Spongelab Interactive
Toronto ON
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