Blind-Accessible Museum Tours Grow
Technology, ADA Increasing Museum Access the for Sensory Disabled
Aug 8, 2008
Some US museums and institutions that are adding or enhancing tours and exhibits designed for the disabled include:
- The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
- The New World of Coca-Cola
- The Rubin Museum of Art
- The USArtists: American Fine Art Show
- The Jewish Museum
- The Internatonal Spy Museum.
Accessible Exhibits One Can Hear or Touch
Bush Presidential Library installs advanced audio description technology
Antenna Audio’s XP-vision™ Multimedia Player now makes tours of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum (College Station, Texas) accessible to blind people.
Featuring the voices of George and Barbara Bush, the tours explore the President’s historic impact and document his commitment to public service. The XP-vision™ Multimedia Player is a handheld that delivers audio description and American Sign Language through a touch-screen interface that displays images, videos, and captioning.
Coke adds life, and descriptive audio
The New World of Coca-Cola (Atlanta, Ga.), which features interactive theaters and an actual working bottling plant, provides free Softeq handhelds (Guest Services, main lobby) availing blind visitors of descriptive audio in multiple languages and closed captioning for all shows and exhibits.
Tour Himalayas by touch
The Rubin Museum of Art (New York, NY) offers free, one-hour Verbal Imaging and Touch tours (individual and group) for blind and visually impaired persons interested in the culture, history, religion, and arts of the Himalayas, the museum’s focus. Call Emilie Dufour (212.620.5000 Ex. 345) for reservations. A two-week lead-time is required. The Rubin Museum is located at 150 West 17th Street New York, NY.
Premier art show reaches out to disabled
The 17th annual USArtists: American Fine Art Show, featuring over 50 fine-art dealers, offers sight- and hearing impaired visitors Touch Guide & Interpreters Tours displaying touchable art, including sculptures. The half-hour tours, free to accredited education groups, take place Friday and Saturday, October 17th and 18th at 10:00 and 10:30 AM at Philadelphia’s 33rd Street Armory, located on 33rd Street between Market and Arch streets. Call 215.972.2042 for reservations (required).
Accessible art at the Jewish Museum
Tours of The Jewish Museum (New York, NY) can accommodate visitors with visual, hearing, or developmental disabilities. Current and future exhibits include:
- “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976” (Ends Sept. 21.)
- “Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949” (Nov. 9, 2008-March 22, 2009.)
- “Dead Sea Scrolls” (Sept. 21, 2008-Jan. 4, 2009.) Call 212.423.3225 with access or program questions or to schedule a tour; allow one-month lead-time.
Spy Museum must increase accessibility
A settlement between the Justice Department and the International Spy Museum (Washington, D.C.) will soon make the exhibit and program content more accessible in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agreement, announced in June 2008, establishes a new level of access for cultural and informal educational settings for visitors with sensory disabilities, who number 16 million in the United States.
Under the agreement, the museum will provide tactile floor-plan maps, regular tours with qualified readers and audio describers, sample models and objects (or reproductions) for tactile examination, sign language services, and integrated wheelchair seating areas. The museum has already developed a proprietary closed-captioning technology and retained accessibility experts to augment compliance.
A blind visitor citing exhibit inaccessibility prompted the investigation.
The Spy Museum, which has had 4 million visitors since its July 2002 opening, is located in the Pennsylvania Quarter four blocks from the National Mall. Visitors can examine over 200 spy gadgets, weapons, cameras, and vehicles, and test their code-breaking, observation, and surveillance skills at interactive stations.
Whether inspired by new technologies or the need to comply with federal laws, the best museums are finding new ways to make exhibits and content available to all.
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