I've also got a little something to add about accessibility ... here in
Cleveland we're working on a project to design a new museum, and from the
start we brought in an accessibility consultant, Jeff Moyer. He is legally
blind, and one of the strongest advocates for accessibility that I've ever
met. As we began the design process for our exhibits, Jeff constantly
pressed us to make everything more accessible. He constantly asked
questions about how a person of limited vision, mobility or hearing would
possibly interact with the exhibits, and because of this, I feel our designs
are a lot stronger in terms of being accessible for the widest possible
audience.
I also joke with Jeff a lot in that he's really ruined the museum-going
experience for me, because now when I visit other museums, I'm constantly
analyzing what they do, and sadly in most cases, do not do for
accessibility. Far too often, museums rely on visual tricks in their
exhibits that are completely useless for a visitor of limited vision, do not
provide hands-on replicas of artifacts on exhibits, do not provide closed
captioning on museum videos. Exhibits that look fine to a curator or
designer who can stand in front of them do not look the same to someone in a
wheelchair.
Yes, it costs more. However, increasing a museum's accessibility will also
increase its audience. Museums are wonderful places and we all have
wonderful collections; let's open them to the fullest degree!
And for a small sales pitch, if anyone wishes to contact Jeff Moyer (who
does consulting work with a number of other institutions and organizations
besides ours), check out his website at www.jeffmoyer.com Jeff is a
wonderful guy, and not to sound too cliched, it really took a
visually-impaired man to open my eyes in the museum environment.
Christopher J. Dawson
Curator of Urban and Industrial History
Crawford Museum of Transportation and Industry Design Task Force
Western Reserve Historical Society
10825 East Boulevard
Cleveland, Ohio 44106
216-721-5722 x247
[log in to unmask]
"History repeats itself; historians repeat each other." -- Philip Guedalla
----------
>From: "Richard S. White" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Discrimination at the Kimball
>Date: Fri, Sep 8, 2000, 11:09 AM
>
>When I began working at the museum I'm at now, I inherited a 2000 square
>foot exhibit which had been about 50% completed over a three year period. I
>had 6 months to finish it. One of the most enjoyable parts of this was
>inviting a wheel-chair using member of the museum to tour the exhibit with
>me to offer advice.
>
>The woman who assisted me was a wonderful person...pleasant, helpful and
>surprisingly to me, very practical in her approach. Perhaps I was
>unconciously acting on a stereotype, but my experience in the public sector
>previously (County government)with ADA advisory councils had not been good.
>I was expecting the "I don't care if it cost 4 times what your annual budget
>is, you have to do such and such" (the "reasonable" part of reasonable
>accomodation is often forgotten). Her approach was "Let's see what we can
>do reasonably to improve things" Did we end up with a perfect exhibit? No.
>But it is much better than it might otherwise have been, and I will include
>her in the planning stages of any future exhibt work.
>
>I think every museum needs to develop a relationship with such a person, to
>help in exhibit design. And I second the idea of having docents and
>tourguides tour the museum in a wheelchair. We also take our docents
>through blindfolded and using a cane as we do many programs with the
>visually impaired.
>
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