Title: Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum Visitors
1Alternatives to the Audio guide for Deaf Museum
Visitors
2What is the difference between deaf, Deaf, and
hard of hearing?
- Deaf- an individual who is active in the Deaf
community through sign language and culture.
Often diagnosed as profoundly deaf and sign
language is their primary form of communication. - deaf- an individual who is medically diagnosed as
deaf (ranging from moderate to profound in one
ear or both) but may not necessarily know sign
language or associate with Deaf culture and
communities. - Hard of hearing- an individual who is medically
diagnosed as hard of hearing can have mild to
moderate hearing loss and may not know sign
language but are able to communicate verbally. - Can be diagnosed at any age, but when deafness is
genetic or occurs due to a childhood illness,
spoken language is not usually acquired and the
child relies on sign language to communicate.
3How does this effect museums?
- Deaf/deaf visitors cannot use standard audio
guides. - Capital D Deaf visitors in particular, who
learn English or any written form of a spoken
language as a secondary language, may have
difficulty in reading due to grammar and syntax
differences. - Museum technologies are excluding Deaf/deaf
visitors.
4Alternative Options for the Deaf
- 1. Sign Language Based Tour that is on a PDA or
smartphone that can be downloaded prior to a
visit or given out at a museum. - 2. Captioned videos or podcasts that can be
downloaded onto MP3 players or streamed on the
museum website.
5- BSL tour in the Tate Modern Gallery
- Tate Modern's BSL Tour was the first sign
language guide of a museum collection. - The handheld computer plays video clips of
interpreters signing a tour of highlights of the
displays. - The tour provides on-demand interpretation for
deaf visitors in their preferred language, as an
alternative to having to wait for a
BSL-interpreted gallery talk.
6Whats the response to the Tate Modern?
7British Museum BSL Videos
- Video project with the Frank Barnes School for
Deaf children, which is one of the few schools in
England which promotes a BSL bilingual approach. - The British Museum asked three groups of Frank
Barnes students to use BSL to describe some of
the key objects in the Museum. - The project was supported by a grant from the
Trusthouse Charitable Foundation. The videos were
filmed by Remark! a company managed and run by
Deaf people
8British Museum BSL Multimedia Tour
- 2009 Press release announced new set of handheld
guides launches at the British Museum, designed
to allow visitors to learn more about the British
Museums collections. This includes - A Multimedia Guide available in 11 different
languages, including British Sign Language (BSL) - An Audio Description Guide (in English only)
- A Childrens Multimedia Guide (in English only)
- The new Multimedia Guide, made possible by
sponsorship from Korean Air, will be available in
eleven languages (English, Korean, Arabic,
French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin,
Russian, and Spanish, and a separate guide for
British Sign Language). - The Audio Description Guide has in-depth
descriptive audio commentaries of each of the 220
objects for visually impaired people (English
only), while the British Sign Language Guide will
launch with signed videos of about 120 objects.
Videos will be added so as to include the full
220 objects on the BSL Multimedia Guide by
mid-January 2010. - The Multimedia Guides, with the exception of the
Audio Description Guide, will use a portable
touchscreen device, the XP Vision, made by
Antenna Audio.
9Museum Sign Language Guide Project
- 2008, the European Commission gave funds for the
Museum Sign Language Guide project, which aims at
making information of museums and exhibitions
more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing
people. - These videoguides enable Deaf people to receive
information in Sign Language and thus accompany
Deaf museum visitors through the exhibition,
transferring the same information as hearing
people get through audio-guides or within a
guided-tour. - Within the course of the project MuseumGuides for
three partner-museums are produced the Art
Collection of the Veste Coburg (Coburg/Germany),
Schönbrunn Castle (Vienna/Austria) and the Museum
of Recent History (Celje/Slovenia). The Art
Collection of Veste Coburg and the Schönbrunn
Castle have actively used sign language guides. - Another main result of the project are the
Guidelines for the Production of Sign Language
videos. The purpose of this is to summarize the
results and experience of the project work and
help museums interested in creating their own
MuseumGuides for Deaf People reducing the extent
of external consultancy and thus the cost of
development therefore guaranteeing the
sustainability of the project.
10Whats in the US
- Unfortunately, no permanent exhibitions have
captioned video tours or ASL tours. - Museums that have technologies capable of
becoming more Deaf accessible- LACMA, MoMA,
Walker Art Center, and Brooklyn Museum using cell
phones and MP3 players. - Museum of Science in Boston implemented one of
the first ASL tours for a traveling exhibition on
a PDA.
11Museum of Science, Boston ASL PDA tour
- Supported by the National Science Foundation and
making its premiere at the Museum of Science,
Boston, on October 27, 2005 Star Wars Where
Science Meets Imagination used all six Star Wars
films as a gateway to examining technologies of
today and tomorrow. - Multimedia PDA tour developed with Antenna Audio
that also had an ASL option which displayed an
ASL interpretation of the audio guide option. - The MoS felt that the Star Wars exhibit was a
good opportunity to use a new technology (at the
time) to engage visitors to make them have a
cool gadget like the characters in Star Wars. - Overall, Deaf visitors found the ASL tour to be
empowering, giving them independence and access
to content. However, additional cultural issues
related to timing, learning style and norms need
to be taken into account for future tours. They
also recommended that the next handheld tour have
more graphical content and keyboards and that
tour content needs to be reexamined in the
context of the deaf visitor.
12How can US museums change?
- Apply for grants.
- Become more involved with the Deaf community.
- Partner with companies that work with the Deaf
community by providing assistive technology such
as Sorenson VRS or KeenGuides.
13Sorenson VRS and KeenGuides
- Sorenson Video Relay Services provides free
videophone and other technology services to deaf
and hard of hearing individuals. Deaf or hard of
hearing individuals can call another individual
and communicate through a certified interpreter
or call another videophone number to communicate
with another Deaf or hard of hearing individual. - Sorenson BuzzCards is an app for your iPhone or
iPod touch. A BuzzCard is used to communicate
more easily with people who don't know sign
language. Create cards ahead of time and make or
edit cards on-the-go, easier communication in
everyday situations like ordering a cab or food.
To use a BuzzCard, just pick the card you want to
show, and then hold up your iPhone or iPod touch
so that it can be seen and read. - The Sorenson Video Center for the iPhone OS app
is now available for Sorenson customers who have
an iPhone, an iPod touch, or iPad devices. The
Video Center app is a mobile version of the Video
Center feature that is available on the Sorenson
videophone. This mobile version of the Video
Center lets you view SignMail video messages and
all other videos that are available on the
Sorenson videophone right on your iPhone, iPod
touch, or iPad device. - KeenGuides creates short-format video (30-90
seconds) on a mobile platform by GPS location
(geocoded) tagged with categories (like good for
kids, or Civil War.) and accessible for people
with foreign languages and disabilities.
KeenGuides has created ASL tours and cued speech
tours that can be downloaded from iTunes or the
web site.
14 Issues of Accessibility
- ADA- 1990. Americans with Disabilities Actonly
publicly funded places need to have TDDs,
interpreters, or assistive listening devices
(including many museums) however there are
clauses that state that a museum or any publicly
funded institution does not have to comply with
accessibility if it causes an undue financial
burden or alters the fundamental structure of
the museum. - Acceptance of sign language as a languagevaries
from country to country, and the US has only
began to accept American Sign Language as a
foreign language, separate from English (ASL is
not considered an official language of the US,
but neither is English). - Stereotypes and cultural fallacies that have been
upheld through time. Deaf culture and community
needs to be accepted as well as the fact that
many people who legally have a disability, do not
consider themselves disabled.