Learning at Museums, and Access for Visually Impaired Visitors

typical classrooms, where children feel more comfortable therefore more motivated (Xu et al. 2005). Curiosity & Imagination, the national network for children’s hands-on learning, offers children practical, exciting, and powerful hands-on activities to develop their identity and inspire their imagination. Funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, their ‘Bringing Heritage to Life’ program provides hands-on museum and heritage experiences to children in order to support their learning. As part of their ‘Action research’ scheme, the Curiosity & Imagination (2007) undertook in total 9 hands-on heritage learning projects under the main

research titles of ‘By Children, For Children’ and ‘Making a Difference’ between January 2003 and August 2004.

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was launched in 2000 as the strategic agency for museums, archives and libraries, replacing the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC) and the Library and Information Commission (LIC).

Their policy for the museum sector asks curators and program makers to provide more educational and inclusive content. By providing an “Access for All” self-assessment toolkit to museums they also make the accessibility and diversion policies accessible to these institutions (MLA 2007).

Similarly, the Cultural Heritage Applications unit of the European Commission has launched a study called 'Digital Heritage and Cultural Content' (DigiCULT) at the end of 2001. With an overall aim of making digital resources for the cultural heritage sector more accessible to a wider audience with the use of ICT (Information

and Communication Technologies), the DigiCULT study provides European museums, archives, and libraries with guidance about the challenges they would face between 2002 and 2006 (Mulrenin 2005). One of the important outcomes of this study is the process of “unlocking the Value of Cultural Heritage”. To illustrate this, “A Four-Layer Model” was produced (Figure 2-3).

The function of the museum has long been discussed, and completely different views aroused from these discussions. In the most basic form of description, museums are institutions that preserve “precious things and ideas” (Welsh 2005: p. 111). Even though the role of museums in society is constantly changing, museums are still collecting and conserving valuable objects from different periods of history. With the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)⁹ coming into legislation, to provide not only physical but also intellectual access to content in museums became a legal requirement in the UK. Museums now all around the world are developing new ways to enhance their educational facilities, improve access and appeal to wider audiences. The British Museum, for example, has a wide range of events organised for deaf and blind visitors, signed gallery talks, handling sessions, and Braille labels and plaster cast reliefs of Parthenon sculptures which can be touched (British Museum 2004).

As stated in the previous section, most blind people rely on touch to gather graphical and spatial information of objects (Heller 2003: p.161). Until the late 90s, there was not a large number of written works available about accessibility in museums (Rayner 1998). Today on the other hand, there are plenty of resources for researchers like myself to study and understand what kind of developments accessibility in museums has been through. For instance Rayner’s research for ‘Access in Mind’ looks at some early

learning-related activities made for or with disabled audience in mind (1998). Access in Mind is a published report in the format of a book put together for the Intellectual Access Trust (INTACT) in Scotland, with the intention of producing guidance to

museums and museum researchers to broaden their understanding of inclusive heritage

9 Government defines Disability Discrimination act as “a piece of legislation that promotes civil rights for disabled people and protects disabled people from discrimination”. More information can be found at:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRights/DG_4001068

Figure 2-3: Unlocking the value of cultural heritage resources; DigiCULT four-layer model (DigiCULT 2005)

and cultural institutions. This report was the result of interviews and observations which took place largely in Scottish museums. The report examines the improvements in accessibility that took place in museums after the 1995 DDA for physical needs and raises the argument for a need to pay more attention to intellectual access, to also include visitors with learning disabilities. I took this criticism into account at the time of designing the Tactual Explorations project of this thesis, in order to make it available to everyone who wished to take part.

People with sensory disabilities are offered less advanced amenities than people with mobility disabilities in museums, although the multisensory approaches have become common “services” in some of these institutions (Kusayama 2005). Visually impaired museum goers demand better and wider access to museum collections and now the government legislation recognizes this need officially (Candlin 2004), it is even more

necessary than ever for researchers to work towards better, inclusive, and more meaningful access to the museum exhibits for such visitors.

In addition to general access debate within the museums, the concept of ‘tactile museum’ is also becoming more widely available not only as part of a conventional museum but also as an establishment on its own.

Although these museums are conceptually and practically are very different to what this thesis proposes, for the sake of understanding the development of access and Universal Design principle¹⁰ in museums, it is necessary to look at these important establishments. For example, founded in 1984 by the Lighthouse for the Blind of Greece, Tactual Museum¹¹ in Kallithea enables their visitors to examine replicas of ancient Greek works, such as Venus de Milo, one of the most important examples of Hellenistic art, the original of which is still held in Paris' Louvre museum (Becatoros 2004). Similarly, another tactile museum that is designed specifically for a blind or visually impaired audience is the Museo Tiflológico in Madrid, Spain. In its collection there are reproductions of art-historical monuments, art created by artists with visual impairments, as well as a historical navigation of the development of devices for blind people (Axel & Levent 2003). One other very important institution of tactile interaction is the Perkins Museum in Boston, America. The Perkins Museum illustrates the history of educating blind or deafblind students of variety disciplines, including Reading &

Writing, Geography, Math, Science, Music, and Sports. The museum displays the school's history through original correspondence, photographs, and tactile images, as well as the oldest and largest tactile globe in the US (Perkins Museum 2011).

Main museums, on the other hand, usually offer ‘touch tours’, ‘tactile images’, ‘tactile diagrams ‘Braille prints’ and ‘handling sessions’ as part of their program (Axel & Levent 2003). Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama in US, The Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki in Finland, The Jewish Museum in New York City in US, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in US, and the National Gallery in London in UK are some of the museums that include touch tours, tactile replicas, as well as audio descriptions to enable better access for their visitors.

10 Explained in the Inclusive Approach / Universal Design section of this chapter

11 Tactual Museum remained closed for 3 years until 2001, due to the damages caused by the 1999 earthquake. Website can be accessed at http://www.tactualmuseum.gr.