Initially we went to larger museums and conducted in these measure areas, audience research.
So we sat down with groups of people with vision loss and often people that also have
other disabilities, and looked at their needs and preferences as they pertain to museum
visits.
It was a very mixed group of people, some of whom were art aficionados, some of whom
have never been to museums, some of whom used to be museum members and just stopped going
once they acquired a disability.
We have now finished looking at the data from this research.
We partnered with Christine Reich and her team at the Museum of Science, Boston.
And so, they helped us both to create an instrument to conduct these focus groups, as well as
process the data.
And that will be-- is released in the form of white paper, and will be published into
professional publication.
What we would like smaller museums to do is to take the same tools that we developed and
piloted with large metro museums and see-- and pilot those themselves.
And we’re very excited about the data that will be coming in because we have museums
that are so diverse from having a couple of volunteers to having sort of a horizontal
staff structure, and maybe eight to fifteen, or even a couple dozen employees.
And so, we’re very excited to see if-- how these museums would be able to use these materials
and start an accessible program on this scale.
As the study unfolds, I think that one of the critical things that Art Beyond Sight
team, but also Museum of Science, Boston team that Christine Reich is leading, one of the
things that we’re truly interested in looking at is organizational change.
And that includes not only launch and maintaining a program that is lasing, but does it take
root in the museum team.
Does it become an issue that’s important across museum departments?
Or is it just one person’s pet project�