Hello,

We are not currently using Apple Newtons for wayfinding (though there is
thought of using them on our campus for that, and integrating our museum's
usage on that campus-wide "tour") but we are experimenting with using them
for gallery/audio guides in our museum. The standard blurb on the project
follows:
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Hand-Held Gallery Guides: Working with Visible Interactive of S.F. we are
exploring a pilot project to use hand-held Apple Newton computers as
visual/audio guides to collections and exhibitions. Unlike most
audio-gallery
guides, these let visitors use information in a non-linear, interactive
manner via the screen, which will be used to display text and image data as
well as collecting input from visitors. The unusual combination of
visual/text and
audio information makes this device a natural assistant for
hearing-impaired students and other museum visitors.
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At the last AAM in Minneapolis, there was also a panel discussion on audio
guides in museums, including the Newton. You can still buy the tape from
AAM if interested; the session was called "Now Hear This: expanding
interpretive possibilities with digital audio guides" organized by Ellen
Guisti.

Since our project is non-funded, and an experiment at this point, we have 6
of the units, and 15 works from the collection on the guides. Each work
however has many minutes of audio about different aspects (15 minutes or
so). There is no time limit for check out, and they are complimentary to
museum visitors (since again they are not a permanent service, but an
experiment at this point, we want to get maximum user feedback).

We were the pilot site for using these devices from Visible Interactive,
and our project experiment will continue through Dec. 96 at which point
we'll evaluate them to see if we want to keep them and expand it into a
full-featured service. A full consideration of our findings to date can be
gotten from the AAM tape mentioned above, and I'll probably post the final
findings on our WWW site and announce it, or write up an article for
Spectra (can I Suzanne?:)

Hope this helps,



Richard Rinehart              | University Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive
Systems Manager & Education   | University of California at Berkeley
Technology Specialist         | 2625 Durant, Berkeley, CA 94720-2250
[log in to unmask] | http://www.uampfa.berkeley.edu/