You can use these resources to improve your own understanding, as discussion starters, and for training your staff. We encourage you to be curious and find other resources that you think might work well for your organization. The resource guides are not intended to be complete, but to make it easier for you to get started.
Table of Contents
Time Savers
Read:
- Museums Are Finally Taking Accessibility for Visitors with Disabilities Seriously, 16 minutes from Artsy.
- The Inclusive Museum, 14 minutes from Prime Access Consulting. Sina Bahram shares a memory about his early experience in an art museum as a blind student during a school tour. Sina advocates for Inclusive Design as an invitation for people to participate.
- “Access for All” Begins with Community Listening at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, 8 minutes from the American Alliance of Museums Alliance Blog. Alyssa O’Connell, Shasta Bray, and Alix Gasser write about accessibility partnerships, with an emphasis on training staff and the importance of sharing responsibility for accessibility across all staff and volunteers.
- Liza Sylvestre’s Ideal Museum Engages All the Senses – Not Just Sight, 2 minutes from Art in America. Minh Nguyen writes about artist and curator Liza Sylvestre, whose disability is central to much of her art and advocacy.
- Audio description in an inclusive museum – VocalEyes, 7 minutes. This article highlights a research study that found people who get an audio described tour of images have richer and better memories of the images, even when sighted.
Watch/Listen:
- “Nothing About Us, Without Us,” Developing Programs and Services Accessible for All, 2 minutes from the National Recreation and Park Association.
- Museum of Deaf History, Arts and Culture, 4 minutes from ABC affiliate KMBC News. An interview about the museum that includes ASL interpretation.
- How America developed two sign languages — one white, one black, 5 minutes from The Washington Post. American segregation, both legally and culturally, resulted in differences in sign language for many Black and Brown students.
- Building Community at the Museum of Modern Art (Accessible version with Verbal Descriptions), 5 minutes from the Museum Access Consortium’s (MAC) Supporting Transitions Project. Learn about the Museum of Modern Art’s Create Ability recreation program for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families.
- Podcast ep. 8 Disability and…Curation with Aidan Moesby and Jennifer Gilbert, 45 minutes from Disability Arts Online, some strong language, transcript available. An interview with curator and self advocate Aidan Moesby, about representation of people with disabilities in the arts as visitors, creators, and staff.
- VG&M Guided Tours at Home – The Asylum Building, 8 minutes, audio described by the Victoria Gallery and Museum on YouDescribe. An example of audio description.
Toolkits and Training
Online Toolkits:
- See our Accessible Communication Guide page to support core communication skills while planning programs, interpretation, and exhibits.
- Tour Toolkit: Developing an Inclusive Tour from the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
- Resources to Help Ensure Accessibility of Your Virtual Events for People with Disabilities
- Accessible Information Exchange: Meeting on a Level Playing Field from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to learn how to conduct accessible meetings. Think about how the DOJ’s guide is also useful for programs and events.
- Exhibit Design Relating to Low Vision and Blindness Summary Report, National Center on Accessibility, 17 minutes from the U.S. Architecture and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) and the National Park Service. The project brought people with low vision and blindness with related stakeholders in a workshop to discuss exhibit design and operations.
- Connected to Culture: A digital toolkit to help organisations bring their cultural programmes online from the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and Google Arts and Culture.
- Working Document of Best Practices: Tips for Making All Visitors Feel Welcome from members of MAC.
- MoMA: Museum Training Resources offers useful training videos and is a great example of making training easily available to staff, volunteers, and the community.
- Art Beyond Sight: Programming A-Z Training
- Art Beyond Sight: Accessibility Tools Training
Webinars:
- Leading Accessible Virtual Programs, 90 minutes from the Cultural Accessibility Collaborative (CAC), handouts available. Tools and strategies for engaging audiences with disabilities in virtual programs with examples of visual description, live CART captioning ,and ASL interpretation are shown using Zoom.
- Engaging Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities in Virtual Programs, 77 minutes from CAC. A Neurodiverse panel shares ideas from their professional and lived experiences that will help you reimagine online programming as a way to connect with your audience in new ways.
- Audio Description: An Introduction to Core Concepts, 93 minutes from the National Park Service.
Additional Resources
- Accessible Meetings, Events and Conferences Guide – ADA Hospitality and Disability, an ADA National Network Initiative
- Accessibility for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Audiences at Cultural Institutions
- Accessibility in museums: creating a barrier-free cultural landscape from Museums + Heritage Advisor. 6 accessibility and inclusion case studies from European and Canadian museums and links to other resources.
- AgrAbility, agricultural accessibility ideas that may be useful for historic sites, arboretums, museum grounds, and gardens.
- Michael O’Bryan helps people to find sanctuary in art, 7 minutes. This article provides an introduction to trauma-informed museum practice.
- Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance: Accessibility
- Texas Historical Commission Resources: Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion
- Google Arts and Culture: Bringing the World’s Art and Culture Online for Everyone
- National Park Service, Gettysburg National Military Park Audio-Described Brochure, this brochure was hosted on UniDescription, Even though UniDescription is specifically for NPS, the standards for audio description are good. The web version is done in a simple format that anyone can use as an example to create their own web brochure.
Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution unless otherwise noted.
