Greetings.

Here at the Exhibit Museum we currently have no specilaized tour programs,
but a number of things are happening.  We have seasonal planetarium star
talks in-the-works in three languages, the shows being very basic "sky
tonight" kind of programs.  Being on tape, the english-speaking planetairum
operator will listen to the show on head phones, hearing a synchronized
english version.  As for tours, we are fortunate to have a wide variety of
university students as tour guides.  On average we have a docents who can
speak French, German, and Spanish well enough to give a simple tour.
Others are very fluent in their second language.  Our number of ESL or
non-english-speaking groups is low  but we can generally accommodate them
if they happen to speak one of those three languages!

We had discussed the possibility of  trying to develop a tour with a sign
language interpreter, but we haven't yet found the right person.  We are
thinking that our computerized virtual museum tour (not yet released) may
have applications for the sight-impaired.  So far we have not addressed
hearing impaired persons.

Hope this helps.

Matt Linke

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Matthew Linke
Planetarium Director
University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History
Ann Arbor,  Michigan
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