Poster Presentation Abstract for Tactile Graphics 2005

Title: Touch in the museum

Presenter: Lara Latcham

Herefordshire Heritage Services, UK

Abstract:

This poster shows how tactile imaging at its most basic level is impacting on service delivery for a museum service. Inspired by the Talking Images Conference, Herefordshire Heritage Services set up work placement partnerships with RNCB to audit and improve their accessibility for the visually impaired. Tactile images have been made to represent fragile and ancient objects that cannot be handled as well as representations of art works. Although their work with tactile images is not ground breaking it is unusual to find it used extensively in museums.

The project is on-going for all Heritage Services sites across Herefordshire and is now enhanced by the use of the T3 (Talking Tactile Tablet). Hereford Museum and Art Gallery is the first in the country to have a T3 and it is helping to bring their glass cases to life for the visually impaired. Heritage Services is hoping to inspire other museums to take the tactile tack and is trying to lead in best practice for the museum sector.

Objectives of presentation:

To demonstrate how the leisure and tourism sector is using tactile images to improve access.
To show that small, low funded organisations can afford to offer this type of access.

Outcomes for audience:

The visually impaired community are not traditionally frequent visitors to museums as they have not traditionally been catered for, this poster should show that museums can be good places for them.
None of the work that has been completed could have been achieved without the partnership of the RNCB and it would be great to see more such partnerships between Heritage sites and Blind Colleges and Associations. We hope this poster will put the seed into people’s minds.

Prior knowledge of topic assumed: Low

Contains advanced technical content: No

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