From Newsweek:

A landmark ruling by the Justice Department last year is forcing museums around the country to reexamine the way they make their facilities accessible to people with impaired vision. Increasingly, museums are concluding that they must expand accessibility to include the whole museum experience, not just ramps and handrails.

Kareem Dale, the president’s special adviser on disability policy, has taken a personal interest in the matter, convening a meeting of museum directors to discuss best practices and backing a website to aggregate accessibility information on public venues across the country. Dale is partially blind.

To be sure, many museums are already doing more than the bare minimum. The actual question of how to bring the visual arts to those without sight may seem both impractical and impossible. When we think of visiting museums, we tend to think of quiet, meditative places, where we keep our hands to ourselves and our voices down. But museums at the forefront of accessibility are beginning to offer touch tours, tactile maps, and extended verbal descriptions. Some are even incorporating scent into their educational programs.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under accessibility, arts/music, blindness/visual impairments, NOT2BEMISSED, Obama administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.