Two weeks ago I asked for information about personal digital assistants in
museums:

I am interrested in "personal digital assistants" and their educational use in
exhibits. Does anyone know of museums that use the technology successfully,
what
different systems there are on the market and what they cost.

As I understand it does the assistent contain information on a CD-ROM which is
presented to the visitor through earphones. The technique resembles what you
get with
taperecorders and hearing loops, but with a possibility for the visitors to
interact
and individually choose what they want to hear.

Any fragmentary piece of information is welcome. You can either respond to the
list
or to me personally, [log in to unmask], and I will compile the answers I
get.


These are the answers I recieved:

I understand from my sister who just returned from Britain that the
National Gallery uses CD-ROM based acoustiguides.

Judith Price, Canadian Museum of Nature

Vi heller just pe att fe de fvrsta cd-rom spelarna till Nordiska museet fvr att
prova
dom i en utstdllning i ndsta er. Ta kontakt med Chris Tellus pe Antenna i USA
han
har negot kallat GalleryiGuide, e-mail   [log in to unmask], eller fvr ett annat
system, AudioMate med flash minnen, som vi ockse tdnkt prova Johan
Jacobsson-Ivv pe
MacroCom, tel 08 464 71 71

Johan Aredal, Nordiska Museet

We supply a digital wand system which provides a random access,layered, multi
language audio treatment to support permanent and temporary exhibitions. Over
the
last months, this has been used by the Library of Congress for their
Biblioteque
nationale exhibition as well as the Guggenheim and LACMA.If you would care to
send me
your address I will be happy to send you details and pricing.
kind regards.

Michael McLoughlin, [log in to unmask]

Thank you very much for your help.

johan