Dear Harry, the use of cellular phones as an adioguide looks interesting. If you have not had a request from someone at the Museum of Vicotia for more information or the evaluation you spoke of would you please send me a copy. If some one from our institution has contacted you can you let me know so that I can follow it up please. Thanks Harry Hope to catch up with you when you are in Australia later this year. Ingrid Tadich =S*:S*On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, HNEEDHAM wrote: > At the Canadian Museum of Civilization, we have basically given up on our > cassette-based audioguides, which are clumsy, expensive to update and force > visitors to follow sequential paths. > > We have recently completed a pilot test of a guide based on cellular > telephones, operating from our in-house telephone system (no use of commercial > networks). Small cellular phones in a shoulder case were used to access > mulkti-layered data in random sequence in any of multiple languages. The units > were extremely well received by visitors, considering the limitations of the > test. Indeed, I was rather floored by how positively the system was viewed. Th e > changes suggested were simple and do-able. > > We are now studying the cost implications of complete installation in the Gran d > Hall, Canada (history) Hall and Mezzanine and the First People's Hall (under > development). The system will feature layered information (up to 3 layers) in > (initially) 4 languages (English, French, Spanish and German) and all > information can be accessed randomly. The system is useful from an evaluation > perspective, as our telephone/computer network will track in detail visitor us e > of the new system, which should provide a good deal of useful data. Depending > upon the use and demand, we would add information in Japanese and Mandarin). > > Copies of the evaluation are available. (Patricia, there's one in the mail to > you!) > > harry.needham(at)cmcc.muse.digital.ca >