Habitats
The final demographic category to look at within the organisational contingencies, is potentially the most significant, the habitats of the subject specialisms such as museums, libraries, historic houses and so on. Instead of the divisive economics term sector, the term habitat is used for discussing each of these subject specialisms. This links to pragmatism and to evolutionary organisation theory, presenting the subject specialisms as interdependent habitats within a continually changing ecosystem.
Five habitats had above average presence of knowledge artefacts, with Aquarium/ Zoo, and Museum having the highest levels, followed by Theatre, Countryside/ National Park/ Botanic Garden, and Castle/ Palace (Figure 5‑52). The presence in these five above-average habitats ranged from one-in-three to one-in-four present across the operational flutes.
Nine habitats had below average presence of knowledge artefacts with Other Subject, Arts and Crafts, Theme/ Adventure Park (based on only two participants), and Music/ Other performance having noticeably low levels with about one-in-ten flutes with presence of knowledge artefacts. The Other Subject (participation by 29 sites) covers mainly buildings that are part of a complex site such as a World Heritage Site, sites with complex services or subsidiary buildings, alongside nautical-related heritage, specific local arts, and services that sit across education and archives.
For Cultural education, the Aquarium/ Zoo habitat had an extremely high level of knowledge artefact presence, being its highest presence across the objectives. Arts-related habitats (Arts and Crafts, Gallery, and Music/ other performance) had higher levels in Cultural education than in their overall average (see Figure 5‑52), whilst habitats like Library and Archives had the least out of the habitats in this objective (Figure 5‑53).
In Social participation, the Library and Archive habitats had significantly higher levels, while Theatre has the highest (Figure 5‑54).
In Economic development, the presence levels were very similar to the overall average (Figure 5‑55).
In Environmental preservation, habitats specific to heritage buildings and collections had higher presence compared to arts-related habitats (Figure 5‑56).
The Museum habitat had the highest presence level in Environmental preservation, and this was also the highest presence across all the objectives. The knowledge artefact presence by habitat across all four objectives is presented in Figure 5‑57.
Seven subject habitats had higher than the average (9.51%) rate of updated knowledge artefacts. The seven habitats with the lowest presence had the lowest rate of updating too, magnifying the low rate of updated knowledge artefacts across their operational flutes (Figure 5‑58).
Cultural education had a low average (6.76%) of updated knowledge artefacts, and only four habitats (plus Other subject) were above average (Figure 5‑59). Within this objective it therefore appears challenging to maintain updated knowledge artefacts. This might be due to its programming and education content affected by gradually reducing funding, and promotion which due to technological changes has very fast changing content.
The Social participation objective had an updated knowledge artefact average of 9.11% and a spread of subject habitats very similar to the overall average. The Countryside/ National park/ Botanic garden habitat had a noticeably higher rate, twice as high as Archive, Gallery, or Archaeological habitats (Figure 5‑60).
Economic development had a higher average of updated knowledge artefacts (10.65%), but only five habitats were above that average. Theatres had a much higher rate with one-in-four, and Aquarium/ Zoo with one-in-five (Figure 5‑61).
Environmental preservation had the highest updated knowledge artefact average (15.29%) boosted by the collections’ standards resources. Museum, Aquarium/ Zoo, and Historic house/ historic building had the highest rates with about one-in-five updated. The subject habitats with very low levels of Environmental preservation knowledge artefacts are potentially sites that have no collections or physical sites (Figure 5‑62).
The overall conversion rate of present to updated was just below one in two (46.94% mean average or 48.53% median average) (Figure 5‑63).
The Theatre habitat had the second highest rate of conversion (55.19%), and its high presence (28.69%) resulting to the second overall highest updated rate of 15.83% (=28.69%x55.19%). Conversely the Museum habitat had a much lower conversion rate (47.65%), so from the second highest presence (30.83%, higher than Theatre (Figure 5‑57)) it had a lower conversion rate than Theatre, resulting in fewer (than Theatre) updated knowledge artefacts at 14.69% (Figure 5‑64). The updated knowledge artefact levels by habitat across the four objectives are presented in Figure 5‑64.
Looking at overall performance by habitat, one initial observation is that there wasn’t a clear distinction between arts and heritage habitats. There was one standout distinction, however. The habitats that used to form the LAM category (Libraries, Archives, and Museums), have all been performing below average. Museums had a high level of knowledge artefact presence but low updating conversion, whilst Libraries and Archives had below average levels of present and updated knowledge artefacts. Archaeological sites followed a similar pattern and perhaps belong in the same grouping of habitats that have been affected by reduction in public funding and difficult transitions to more self-funded models. The other habitat closely associated with this group is Gallery (as part of GLAM) which had relatively low levels of knowledge artefacts but high performance (Figure 5‑65). It would be beneficial then to learn what the variations were that enabled such effectiveness of the low levels of knowledge artefacts in Galleries.
Furthermore, when arranging the habitats in decenting presence order, performance follows an overall pattern, decreasing as presence decreases (Figure 5‑66). However, there are notable exceptions that are worth understanding. For example, archaeological site habitats had similar performance to museums and theatres but with a third fewer knowledge artefacts. And the Gallery habitat had the second highest performance with roughly half their presence. Is there a difference in culture, in the content, in the support provided, or some other factor that increases the effectiveness in those habitats?
When arranging the habitats in decreasing updated rates (Figure 5‑67), the Library habitat appeared to benefit much less from the high level of updated knowledge artefacts. What could the barriers be there? Is the high updated knowledge artefact presence becoming a bureaucratic workload but perhaps with limited capacity or access to them that hinders improvement in performance? Conversely, Countryside/ National park/ Botanic garden, Historic house/ historic building, Castle/ Palace, Gallery, Arts and Crafts, and Music/ other performance all appeared to benefit more from their updated knowledge resources. Exploring the social demographic contingencies in the following sections provides deeper understanding for these habitats.
