Cultural consumption in small urban centres

Client: IReR - Istituto Regionale di Ricerca della Lombardia
Scientific supervisor: Stefano Baia Curioni
Research team: Laura Forti, Massimiliano Nuccio

The aim of this research is to monitor, through quantitative and qualitative analysis, the initiative "Fai il pieno di cultura" ("Fill up on culture"), which has been set up in May 2008 by Lombardy Region in order to foster the access to local institutions and to improve their perception.
Compared with the previous years, Fai il pieno di cultura has introduced several elements of complexity, as it has connected already existing but separate initiatives, extending their length over three days and intensifying the number of activities, in all the regional area.
The evaluation of the results, through a survey on the attenders and two focus groups involving several operators of the cultural institutions, is therefore a fundamental part of the study: not only to assess the efficacy of material and immaterial investments, but also for the possibility that a retrospective inquiry offers to recognize the critical elements of success (or failure) and to find suitable strategies of intervention. Furthermore, the survey was an opportunity to deepen the characteristics of cultural consumption in the entire region (we considered 59 institutions in 30 municipalities), concerning libraries and museums above all, and to analyze the relationship between heritage and community, in a local development perspective.