Information practices of the Ponto UFMG Itinerant Museum’s visitors

Abstract

This study explores a point of dialogue between the information users studies and Museology’s visitors studies and it investigates the interaction of Ponto UFMG Itinerant Museum’s visitors with information. The research is based on the concept of information practices as an ethnographic doing, using observation and interview for data collection. The results show that many factors influence the interaction between the visitor and the museum elements. Often, the respondents’ reports contradict the observations, and the explanation for that is a combination of factors, including the conception about museums that the visitors have and the level of concern they have about the image they want to transmit about themselves. We conclude that the participant observation combined with the interview, proved to be appropriate in order to unveil the meanings of the visit experience, enabling us to capture not only what visitors say they do, but also what they actually do and what they think about what they do.