The information practice of volunteer guides at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Introduction. Volunteer guides (museum docents) provide a key frontline service for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney. A greater understanding of how guides prepared for their tours could help the Museum further develop its guiding program. Method. Six experienced volunteer guides at the Museum were interviewed. Each semi-structured interview was recorded for later analysis. Findings from these interviews were supplemented by an observation of a workshop for the guides. Analysis. The ways in which the guides described their methods of preparation were understood in terms of Dervin and Dewdney's sense-making framework. The principles of discourse analysis were also applied to the transcriptions of the interviews. Results. The voice of the artist was a critical source of information for guides, as was creating experiences in the gallery space. Balancing the expectations of the institution as well as the visitor also influenced how guides communicated with their audience. Conclusion. Sense-making provided a framework with which to identify how guides integrated numerous information sources in order to prepare for their tours. Incorporating these sources into guide training programmes increases satisfaction amongst this group of highly motivated and dedicated volunteers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]