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           [log in to unmask] "NMS Library" writes:

> Can anyone point me in the direction of articles/papers/projects etc.
> on museum provision for people with learning difficulties?
>
> Many thanks
>
> NMS Library
>
>
There is a fair bit of literature on group-based visits, usually
from special schools, occasionally from adult homes - I've never
found anything about individual/in-family visitors (apart from one,
of which more later).

Buckinghamshire County Museum is about to start the first, we think,
project in this country to make the museum more accessible to visitors
with learning difficulties, outside the group setting.

Colin Dawes, the museum's director read somewhere (but we have not
been able to track down the reference) about a German museum
where there is a special guide-book for visitors with learning
difficulties.

One museum asked some boys from a school for dyslexic what they
could do to make the museum more user-friendly for them.  I don't
think it's been written up - it was reported at a MAGDA meeting
(if you don't know MAGDA, let me know and I'll send details).

And that's it for things about non-group visits.  Which I think
a shame, because group visits make up a tiny proportion of
museum visits.

Books: I can't recommend too highly 'The Big Foot', which details
a number of school projects, in Art Galleries and the British Museum.

The ICOM (if you don't know ICOM, again I'll send details) book
whose title for the moment I forget has a paper which I found
offensive.  If 'ICOM' isn't enough to identify it, let me know and
I'll dig through the piles of books and find it.

Projects: apart from the ones detailed in 'The Big Foot', there
was one at the Fitzwilliam (Cambridge) two or three years ago.
You could also try looking through the back issues of _Museums
Journal_ at the disability column - learning difficulties rarely
are mentioned, though.

I wonder where NMS is - National Museums of Scotland?  Have you
picked Wendy's brain at SMC?

--
Patricia Reynolds
Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum / Freelance Curator

16 Gibsons Green
Heelands
Milton Keynes
MK13 7NH
ENGLAND

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