Abstrakt
Museums, as a part of the information infrastructure, play an important role in the society. Nowadays, museums have to reconsider their approach to visitors in order to prosper and to remain relevant.
Therefore museums need to innovate. With increasing frequency, new media, other technologies and various participation strategies are used for building information envi- ronment and functional communities around the museums.
This article's objective was to ex- amine how Czech museums accommodate their visitors' needs represented by their communica- tion types. Based on psychological, biological and neuro-linguistic theories four communication types (Haptic-social, Intellectual, Visual, Auditive) were linked with presentation techniques used in exhibitions - such as typical displays and accompanying programs.
We used the data from a questionnaire survey conducted in 2015. The questionnaire included thirteen questions, we used two of these for this article; the questions regarding the types of display and the accom- panying programs.
In total, 203 Czech museums responded. According to the official statistics there were 486 museums in 2015.
We thus surveyed almost 42 % of Czech museums. We found out that Czech museums' displays and accompanying programs are most suitable for the Intel- lectual type (31.3%) and the Visual type (32.3%).
The displays and accompanying programs are less suitable for the Haptic-social type (17.6%) and the Auditive type (18.8%). The results regarding the innovation status of the museums were not affected by the size of the museums in question.
The work sets a baseline for monitoring the level of innovation in Czech museums. We identified the need to consider both by-whom and for-whom the displays and activities are created.
Also, possibilities to better fulfil the museums' function lie in better accommodating of the Haptic-social type.
