Museums in focus video transcript

[Barry] Hello I'm Barry Macaulay senior manager,RNIB Northern Ireland and I'mresponsible for the Museums in Focusproject. Today we're at the launch ofthe Sense of the Past Exhibition andthe book at Burnavon Arts and CulturalCentre.

The aim of Museums in Focus is basically to make the museum experienceaccessible and meaningful for blind andpartially sighted people.

In the past, blindpeople tended to stay away from museumsbecause everything was visual; there wasnothing really to interest them or to excitethem and there was no way of them gettinginformation other than maybe someonegoing with them and telling them whatwas in the exhibition.

Part of theMuseums in Focus project is beforethe exhibition comes to each museum wewould send our staff out to do visualawareness training to the staff of the museums.

[Kate] My name's Kate, Kate Keys. I'm the marketing

officer here at the Burnavon Arts Centre. We learntlots this morning.

It's been really useful forme as a marketing officer to learn aboutthe different things aroundcommunication and it's been really goodfor box-office to learn about guidingbecause obviously when people are coming inand out they're the ones that are frontline and they need to be able to knowexactly what do when somebody doescome in.

The PenFriend isamazing, I'venever seen it in operation at all. Wedidn't know it existed and it wassomething that we could use.

[Barry] PenFriend's a very simple, cheap way of making any exhibit accessible. PenFriends wereoriginally intended as a labelling device for foodso the blind or partially sighted personwould record the type of product andthen they would put the bar code ontothe tin and they would then be able to read it with the PenFriend and know what's in their cupboard.

We decided why can't we use this forother things like art galleries, museumsand were able to adapt it, so you can nowread on to a little bar code, the blind persongets the Pen Friend, when they triggerthat little bar code, it speaks to themand it reads the whole exhibition out tothem so really it means it's an audiodescription of the exhibition.

[Elaine] Hello I'm Elaine Kelly, aged39 and I've got macular dystrophy. Pen Friend, I think is absolutely fantastic, it gives me the independenceI can go around freely and be able to listen to what'sbeen explained, instead of feeling embarrassedasking for help all the time.

[Chris] My name is Chris BaileyI'm the director of the Northern Ireland MuseumsCouncil. Now the nice thing about the

Exhibition is that we have that lovelybit of technology that allows all of usto look at things in a different way toappreciate that you can present andinterpret things in a different way, so therein a nutshell is why we as anorganisation became involved in the catalysing of the exhibition.

[Kate] One of the goals for us at the centre is tomake sure that anybody who's coming incan access anything the same way as anybodyelse can, and that just makes it so muchsimpler and so much easier.

[Barry] So if anyonewants to hear any more about the senseof the past exhibition or the Museums in

Focus project:

[We see the end screen with the following words which Barry is heard speaking: You just can contact us at the RNIB Belfast office that's 028 9032 9373 or you can visit our website rnib.org.uk/museumsinfocus]

[Barry] I'd like to thank the Heritage Lottery Fundfor not only funding the Sense of thePast exhibition but also funding theMuseums in Focus project.

[Voiceover] RNIB Northern Ireland.Supporting people with sight loss.

END