Práticas informacionais dos visitantes do Museu Itinerante Ponto UFMG

Abstract

The research explores an intersection point between the studies of information users, a field of Information Science and the visitor studies, a field of Museology, from the information practices perspective, to understand the visitors experience on two exhibitions of the Museu Itinerante PONTO UFMG. Problematizing the relation between the visitors and their experience of visiting museums, we search to understand how occurs the appropriation of information by visitors through objects and other elements of the exhibition; which are the specificities of the visiting experience and, also , how doesthe articulation between the individual behavior and the social references that constitute the actions and opinions of the visitors in their daily life. Based on the perspective of information practices as an ethnographic work, the research - essentially qualitative and comprehensive resort on techniques of participant observation, contextual and semi-structured interview to collect data, in order to perform the dense description of the phenomenon investigated. A total of 143 visitors were interviewed during the period from July 12 to 18, 2015. Data analysis revealed that the subjects' conception of museums in general, their background (or lack thereof) with those spaces and the expectations and motivations for the visit influence the experience of each subject. Based on the expectations and perceptions about the visit, we present five types of visitors: the enthusiast, the intermediary, the authority, the stimulus seeker, and the explorer. For the research subjects, visiting the Museu PONTO went far beyond the educational dimension. It has been an experience that runs through the dimensions of imagination, knowledge and learning, entertainment and sociability. This experience is plural and complex, permeated by different meanings attributed by each visitor as they relate to exhibitions and other visitors, updating discourses and social referents in symbolic disputes.