(To readers: I am Director of Education here and the
          development of audiotours is in my bailiwick.  We do them
          occasionally, no more than one special exhibition annually,
          but are working on permanent-collection tours with the
          production company called Antenna):

          We at The Saint Louis Art Museum have used only the cassette
          format to date, and find it just fine for special
          exhibitions:  the cassettes are relatively cheap to produce;
          also, we often want to tell a particular tale or make
          particular comparisons among the SPX objects, so the linear
          forced-march format of cassettes is OK there.  Also, they're
          a format that we can send out to teachers for their own
          pre-visit orientation, though that can be done with the
          script of any audiotour format.

          We've looked at a couple of other formats, however, and are
          eager to move to a more random-access technology for our
          long-term permanent-collection tours: random-access would
          allow us to remove objects from the list without disrupting
          the flow of the tour since there IS no flow.  It's a lot
          more flexible.

          We're hoping to go with the Gallery Guide CD-ROM technology
          that Antenna Audiotours has produced.  It's expensive but
          it offers many layers of interpretation, the sound quality
          is excellent (uses headsets, for one thing), Antenna's sound
          design is superb, and Antenna does a great job in
          general...We've also looked at the POETS system, which
          involves signals sent from a gismo installed next to the
          artwork, and decided against it: requires wall wiring,
          seemed to allow a max of 7 people at a time in front of any
          object, sound quality was tinny, and my arm got tired
          holding the thing up to my ear...That last feature is a
          potential drawback of Acoustiguide's INFORM, though they do
          offer a headset option.  INFORM seems to be the most
          flexible of the formats: record it yourself on the spot and
          charge the units overnight and Presto.  I've talked to
          people at the National Gallery of Art (D.C.) who report that
          the public loves it.  I find the sound quality pretty tinny,
          again, and the record-it-yourself feature may not allow for
          the brilliant sound design and sound effects that are
          appropriate for some works.  It's worth
          exploring...Antenna's Gallery Guide seems to combine the
          best of multiple layers of interpretation (gallery, group,
          single object), flexibility, beautiful sound, and the good
          writing & production that Antenna offers: but it's also the
          most expensive, I believe...Our visitors have never had the
          choice of anything but cassette tours and so don't really
          know the difference, and they love the cassette tours that
          we've offered.  We'll surely keep the cassette format for
          temporary SPXs, but are still deciding about which
          random-access to do for the permanent collection...Remember
          too that random-access audiotours really function very much
          like object labels and wall text: good info, in varying
          quantities and levels of detail, but each autonomous, very
          difficult to build a theme or a story line...I'll be eager
          to read others' research and critiques of these
          technologies. Thanks for starting the discussion.

          Elizabeth Vallance
          Director of Education
          The Saint Louis Art Museum
          (314) 721-0072
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Susan Patterson
Manager of Information Services
The Saint Louis Art Museum
1 Fine Arts Drive
St. Louis, MO 63110-1380
(314) 721-0072 x278
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