The Bantock House
Wolverhampton Arts & Museums
Wolverhampton, England
Another exemplary museum program in England is at Wolverhampton Arts and Museums in Wolverhampton, England (near Birmingham), which consists of an art gallery, a historic home and park, and a craft gallery. Visitors of the Bantock House historic home’s website can see that the museum provides services for the Deaf community in British Sign Language (BSL); there is a link on the site's homepage that leads a visitor to a series of BSL videos that give information about the Bantock House and the exhibitions. This museum also provides hand-held video guides for Deaf visitors who primarily communicate using BSL, which they also announce on their website – visitors know that this is a place that is accessible for the Deaf community.
When searching through several art museum websites for informational videos in ASL, I was unable to find an art museum in the United States that offers similar services. In terms of technology, there is a U.S. company called Keen Guides, Inc. that is in the process of developing ASL, closed captioned, cued speech, and audio tour guides that are downloadable for portable media players such as iPods. It is not in full swing yet, however,
there is a sample of their services done for the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in ASL. A video like the one in the previous link can be put on a museum's website for the visitor to download or can be loaded onto portable media devices owned or rented by the museum. Once up and running, Keen Guides will offer their services to museums, galleries, monuments, college campuses, or any other institution that provides tours for visitors. The company will also offer a package of pre-loaded media players for institutions to rent. Currently, there are many larger art museums in the U.S. that use similar technologies for self-guided tours, but I was not able to find any that provide ASL video guides. Keen Guides can offer art museums a great way to make their collections accessible to members of the Deaf community through popular, modern technology. If you would like more information on how to provide videos such as these for visitors of your venue, click here.
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