MusLi (Museums Literacy) - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

2. The programme of visits to museums (2002-onwards)
MusLi - No qualifications needed: museums and new audiences
In 2002 a programme of special visits to museums for elderly people was developed by the Volarte Association
on behalf of Turin Municipality.
The remarkable features of the programme were:
• visiting groups (25 in each, with a total of about 150 people each month)
• contacts, promotion and bookings were made in the social circles, associations and clubs
in the neighbourhood
• free transport: a coach leaving from some rendezvous familiar to the participants with a volunteer
escort accompanying visitors to the museums
• free entrance to the museums: the visits were organised on the first Friday of each month,
when there is no charge for entrance to the town’s museums.
• the visits were guided by volunteer guides from the association
• visits lasted about 1 hour
• language used was very clear,
with no specialist vocabulary. References, as far as possible,
were to local history and anecdotes. The volunteer guides stimulated participation and dialogue
amongst participants
• additional time for discussion and socialising was offered during tea/coffee break after the
visit. The refreshments were free.
A large percentage of the participants had (and still have at the time of writing: see next paragraph for
the current initiatives) a low educational level (though the data gathering had finished so this is only
backed up by the direct experience of the volunteers accompanying the groups).
Satisfaction
The degree of the participants’ satisfaction with the programme was measured using questionnaires.
The results:
76.79% were satisfied
78.06% would recommend the visit to friends
After the first organised visits word of mouth actually succeeded in bringing some of the people who
had refused to answer the first survey the previous year into the museums.
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