Disabilities in Museums

Prior to reading either of the articles, for this week my main thought, being from a relatively low income family, was that museums were very open to those who have had little money, thought depending on the museum, certain places were a bit harder to understand without complete context.I never really thought about it before, but looking back, practically none of the museums I visited had braille, though there were several with small buttons that would read the information aloud. The article "Inclusion in Museums: A Matter of Social Justice" by Rose Paque, discusses how museums can be made more inclusive for people of lower income levels and races. The other article, “Accountability and disposal: visual impairment and the museum,” by Keith Hetherington, discusses how to better address making museums more usable for disabled people.Overall, Id say both of these articles touched upon the difficulties that minorities face when visiting museums and offered solutions for the problems.However, I did not realize until looking back that many museums did not have a way for blind people to access information. Considering how big the panels are for those with limited vision, one would think they would add the brail to the side or beneath it? The only possible explanation I can think of for why it isn't listed is because people may be more tempted to touch exhibits, which is already an issue in museums
 

Braille, Audio Guides, Tactile Path: National Museum Makes Exhibition Appealing To Blind

India and the World Museum, https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/braille-audio-guides-tactile-path-national-museum-makes-exhibition-appealing-to-/312309


Sources:
Rose Paquet Kinsley, "Inclusion in museums: a matter of social justice," Museum Management and Curatorship 31, no. 5 (2016): 474-490
Keith Hetherington, “Accountability and disposal: visual impairment and the museum,” Museum and Society 1, no. 2 (2003): 104-115.

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Comments

  1. IsabelSeptember 4, 2020 at 11:49 AM

    Hi Nathan! I like how you brought up your personal experiences in relation to the articles we read this week. I'm with you; I also didn't realize until reading these articles that museums often lack resources for blind/visually impaired people. Do you think that signs in braille would be enough for visually impaired museum visitors? Or do you think that they should be able to have a more interactive museum experience? I think that an interactive experience would be more beneficial, but that can be difficult with rules about touching artifacts.

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  2. Cayla PeasleeSeptember 6, 2020 at 10:12 AM

    I hadn't realized how difficult solutions to this problem would be to come up with. I think that funding is one of the main reasons that museums are often not equipped with resources for anyone but the average viewer.

    I don't think that having braille panels next to the artworks would necessarily be a concern for touching the artworks. I imagine that gallery guards would be available to help guide viewers to the panels so that the artworks wouldn't be touched.

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  3. Shannon PalmerSeptember 6, 2020 at 10:52 AM

    Hello Nathan! Thank you for sharing your observations. It's great that you brought up the lack of braille information for those who cannot see. I think too that even the regular display signs may be inaccessible if someone cannot read the language that it is printed in.

    Do you think that there could be an audio-driven solution to these problems? If museums could offer something like an mp3 player that patrons could carry around, and just place braille and numbers on exhibits, people could just press the corresponding number and listen to something in their language that explains the exhibits to them or describes what the piece of artwork is. Do you think this could be a future solution for these problems?

    Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alicia SevillaSeptember 21, 2020 at 3:06 PM

    HI Nate! Nice touch of adding in your personal experiences with museums. I, too, have noticed the lack of the Braille system in museums, though there is a lack of many resources for disabled people who aren't wheelchair bound. But I have noticed that some museums have provided recorded audio for them to use, but those would be beneficial in an organized exhibit not a general exhibit that you would move freely in. Braille would be a nice add on to help museums step into the right direction in providing more resources for different disabilities.

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