Sorry to jump into the thread a little late but I wanted to add that the Renwick study with the hand-helds was part of a larger initiative that the Smithsonian is hoping to introduce to the entire institution. In April of this year a pilot project is being launched in five of the museums (Udvar-Hazy, Castle, American History, National History, and I think Postal) The devices are being developed by a company called WiVid and they are designed to provide the audio tours, contextual videos and pictures or interviews, and extra text if visitors want it. There is a lot of interesting talk about the possibilities of these devices which would include interactive maps of the museums where visitors could find their way to different object and exhibits or track other members of their group, get suggestions of what they might be interested in based on their history of what they have seen in that museum and other museums in the SI, take quizzes or provide feedback, and then have a follow-up component where they would have their own website they could go to and see objects and information that they had posted to their "clipboard" on the hand-helds while they were in the museum. ~ Olivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Olivia Kohler Graduate Student of Art History American University [log in to unmask] _________________________________________________________________ Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).