 Hello, welcome to NEMO's second webinar in 2018. If you haven't heard of NEMO, NEMO is the network of European museum organizations connecting national museums associations as well as individual museums and interest groups from 40 countries. Being an ever-growing network, so far we count over 90 members. NEMO represents European museums towards policymakers on national and EU level, and furthermore, we share knowledge and train museum professionals in Europe through our training courses, learning exchanges and webinars. Usually, we hold speeches for webinars per year facilitated by different museums experts in Europe about diverse topics in the museum field. Today, we are very glad to hear a webinar of Michel Taylor. Michel has more than 25 years experience in arts and heritage, focusing on disability issues. Michel set up her own business in 1992, conducting trainings and advising organizations on making their practices, policies and premises inclusive of disabled people. Today's webinar, Museums for All, going beyond ramps and toilets to increase access to deaf and disabled people represent the social model of disability as the basis for a practical approach to welcoming deaf and disabled people to our institutions. Michel will show us examples from across the world which demonstrate how disabled people are excluded, but also how barriers can be removed. After the webinar, you have a better understanding of how you can improve the experience that disabled visitors have in the museum and get some tools for planning more major and inexpensive changes. Soon after the webinar, you will find a video on Nemo's YouTube channel where you can also find previous Nemo webinar videos. Before I give the word to Michel, I would like to announce that our next webinar will be held at the 25th of June, conducted by Jonathan Eaton. Jonathan Eaton will speak about museum planning at sites associated with a difficult path. But now I give the word to Michel and wish you all an inspiring webinar session. Thank you. OK, great stuff. Thank you. Thank you for that introduction Fabienne. And it's great to be with you all virtually around the world. I'm sitting here in Nottingham and it's a real pleasure and a privilege to have these next hour, 55 minutes or so, to spend with you talking about disability and equality and inclusion in museums. Now, you have got the opportunity to type questions in the main chat. I will take a few moments every now and then just to check on the questions to see whether there's anything coming through that I need to be addressing. But I won't be looking all the time, so hopefully Fabienne is going to go through the questions for me and just check if there are any themes and any particular issues that seem to be arising for people. So let's go. As Fabienne said, I'm Michel, Michel Taylor. I'm a disabled person and part of what we're actually going to look at today is what that means. So enjoy the presentation. Ask questions. If you want to type a comment and not just a question, then that's great too. That will work. So let's look at what I see as the purpose of this webinar. I have three main things that I would like to do. And the first one is to give you a theoretical framework within which to approach access and inclusion at your museum. And that is the social model that Fabienne has already mentioned. We will be looking at the social model. If you're not familiar with that phrase, I know that some of you are. If you're not, then we're going to show how that is a really useful and kind of demystifying way to look at... using examples from around the world. I've got lots of pictures that I'm going to show you. We're going to look at what that means in practice. So by the end of this hour together, you should have practical steps that you know you can take, a practical basis for planning. And then thirdly, I want to resource you, as I started off to say, to... Oh, I've got a message. Is there an audio? Yes. Me? I'm hoping you're hearing me. To resource you to improve. So the next thing that I want us to look at is to look at why. Oh, there's a problem with the audio apparently. Are you not hearing me? Okay, so some people seem... Ah, it's okay now. So what we just looked at was the purpose of the webinar. I'm going to carry on because I'm hoping that that is familiar. Fabienne covered it. So let's move on. I want to base this on what a museum actually is. A museum, according to Nemo, is something that an institution that changes people's lives. And that's really crucial to this whole notion of access and inclusion. I've taken this from the Nemo website. Museums can change people's lives. They contribute to cohesive communities and reflect the history and identity of all citizens. In turn, museums live and develop by the skills and the creativity of their public, and they must show their value to society. One of the major tasks, says Nemo, of museums is the development of their audiences, be it the reaching out for new groups underrepresented in museums or the creative engagement with visitors in and outside the museum. Now that is really important because what that gives us is a basis for ensuring not only that we welcome disabled and deaf people into the museums and into our exhibitions. I'm just getting a little bit closer to the microphone because I'm seeing that some people are having problems with the volume. I do apologise for that. Lots of people are hearing me fine. Some are not hearing me too well. So I'm not sure what that's about. Paolo, if you want me to do anything differently, then please tell me so. Otherwise I'm just going to keep going. So it tells us about inclusion, making sure that we welcome disabled and deaf people into our museums. It also tells us, though, that what is really, really crucial is that we make sure we're telling disabled people stories because, after all, I'm a disabled person. If I don't see my story when I come to your museum, I'm not going to come back again. So this is not just about the way we welcome visitors. It's about the stories we tell and how we display our exhibitions, our artefacts, how we interpret them to make sure that we're telling disabled people stories. And to go to a different basis, this is really all about what the UN Convention says are the rights of disabled people to take part on an equal basis with others in cultural life. And that includes in the US Convention of 2007 is really, really clear that that includes access to cultural materials in accessible formats, access to places for cultural performances or services, such as theatres, museums, cinemas, libraries and tourism services, and as far as possible enjoying access to monuments and sites of national cultural importance. And thirdly, recognition and support of their specific cultural and linguistic identity, including sign language and deaf culture. So it's really important to recognise that we are not talking here about something that is an added extra, the icing on the cake, as we would say in English. We're talking about something that is actually recognising the rights of disabled and deaf people. And I'm guessing that you're all with me so far because you wouldn't be here at this webinar if you didn't believe that and want to take steps to improve your institution's services for deaf and disabled people still further. Okay, so let's go on to the notion of stereotypes because for me, the notion of stereotypes is absolutely crucial when we're thinking about welcoming deaf and disabled people into our museums and telling disabled people stories because stereotypes get in the way of interacting meaningfully with individuals. And my thinking around this has been very much informed by a TED talk which is entitled The Danger of a Single Story. And that's a TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie and if you go to the TED website and simply Google Chimamanda Adichie or even The Danger of a Single Story, you will arrive at that TED talk. It's about 18 minutes long and I really would thoroughly recommend it as a really important basis for thinking about these issues. Not only is it in a sense a word of warning about how we interact with disabled and deaf people when they're in our institutions, but it's also really useful to bear in mind when we're thinking about how we tell stories within our museum because fundamentally that's what we do in museums. We tell stories. And Chimamanda Adichie argues fundamentally that the danger of stereotypes is not that they're incorrect or false. What she argues is that a stereotype is unhelpful because it becomes the only story that gets told about a group of people. And moreover, it doesn't come from within that group of people. It's told by other people outside of that group about that group of people. So we get a whole series of assumptions and presuppositions and beliefs and prejudices about a group of people that affect the way we interact with individuals. Some of those stories around disabled people, for example, are disabled people can't be independent. What that means is that when you interact with somebody who is disabled, visibly disabled, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment, when you interact with someone who is disabled who comes into your institution, you might assume that they've come with someone who's their carer, and that might not actually be the case. And that starts to get quite significant in terms of how you provide services for that person and for disabled people generally, for example. And another key stereotype is that disabled people are always visibly disabled. In other words, you can always tell by looking at somebody whether they're disabled or not. And that, of course, I'm sure most of you realize, that isn't true, but it becomes a very easy stereotype to kind of fall into. It becomes an easy assumption to make. Sometimes we don't even realize we're making it, and that's where unconscious bias can be a really important mechanism. And I just want to share with you this quotation by someone called Dr. Pete Jones. Pete Jones is an occupational psychologist, and he's done a great deal of work on stigma and on bullying in the workforce. And Pete Jones says, it's an annoying fact that you don't have to believe in a particular stereotype to be influenced by it. So even those of us who are sitting at our computers and thinking, yes, I understand about assumptions, yes, I understand about stereotypes, but I don't believe any of that stuff. Nonetheless, we may still be affected and influenced by those stereotypes, and we need to be checking our institutional policies and practices constantly to make sure that our practices are not themselves falling into those stereotypes. So a second quotation that I want to share with you is by someone called Ian Loven, who used to be director of GCHQ here in the UK, which is kind of related to the Secret Service bizarrely. The point is he said this, and I think it's very, very helpful, he said, an agency requires the widest range of skills possible if it is to be successful. And to deny itself talent just because the person with the talent doesn't conform to a social stereotype is to starve itself of what it needs to thrown. So this isn't just about making sure that we don't exclude anybody. This is about making sure we don't exclude anybody because we need them. We need everybody. We need everybody's input. And if we don't have disabled and deaf people visiting our museums, making objects to exhibit in our museums, working in our museums, then what will happen is that our museums will become impoverished. I think that's a really strong argument for inclusion and for making sure that disabled and deaf people are part of the culture and the infrastructure of our museums and of the whole museum sector. So that's the basis. That's the thinking. So let's move on a little bit. I think it's important to look at some key statistics and key statistics. I've just got four here and I think these are really significant for a number of different reasons. Firstly, it's important to recognise that the EU estimates that one in six people across Europe is disabled. That's the equivalent. This is quite significant. That's the equivalent to the entire population of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary and the Netherlands all added together. So if you are not welcoming disabled and deaf people into your museums, then that's the kind of volume of visitors, volume of people that we're talking about. This is a lot of people. Secondly, around 25% of people in Europe have a family member who is disabled. Now, obviously, we like to welcome people to museums in all sorts of groups and on their own. We welcome solitary individual visitors. We welcome people in social groups. We welcome people in family groups. Because that's the case, it becomes significant to recognise that 25% of people have a family member who is disabled. So the chances are, when a group comes through the doors of your museum, there may well be someone who's disabled within that group. This is really important stuff. Now, only around, it's estimated, only around 6% of disabled people use wheelchairs. That's a really important statistic because very often when we think about disabled people, when you say the phrase disabled people, very often the image that's brought to mind is of someone who's using a wheelchair. And of course, it's really, really important to recognise that we need to make provision for people who use wheelchairs. But it's equally important to recognise that there are lots of other people who are disabled who don't use wheelchairs. And for me, that's about two key reasons. Two key arguments. The first is, if we just focus on people who use wheelchairs, we might do a lot of things. We might take a lot of action to make sure we're including people who use wheelchairs. But then we might not be doing anything for other people who are not wheelchair users. But for example, require sign language or require large print. The other reason is that if we are focusing on people who use wheelchairs, we may think that our museum is not appropriate for disabled people. We may even say, oh, our museum is not accessible. When actually what we mean is that someone who uses a wheelchair may not be able to get into our building and may not be able to get around our building. But the reality is that there will be lots of disabled people, potentially 94% of disabled people who will be able to use our museum and will be able to use it even more effectively if we make a few changes. So it's really important that we don't allow ourselves to get sidetracked into thinking only about people who use wheelchairs. And of course, the universal symbol for disability access is that picture of a person in a wheelchair. And that's not going to change. We just need to learn to live with that. That's not going to change. But in some ways it's not helpful because it reinforces this fixation with people who use wheelchairs who are important, but who do not make up the entirety or even the majority of disabled and deaf people. So the final statistic is that around 18% of disabled people are born disabled. And that's important because that's another stereotype that disabled people are born disabled and actually most are not. And that means that you may be welcoming people into your museum who haven't necessarily been disabled for very long. Or they may not actually have developed their own strategies for managing their own access requirements. I'm going to explain that phrase that I just used, access requirements in a moment. The other thing about that statistic is that it just highlights the fact that any of your visitors who are not disabled may at some point in the future become disabled. And if they have a pre-existing relationship with your museum, they're going to want to continue to come. So making sure that your museum is as usable as possible for disabled people becomes important for that reason too. Okay, I'm going to move on. So we're now going to talk about the social model of disability. And this is a phrase that Fabienne used. It's a really, really important foundation for thinking about and for taking action to make sure that your museum is as accessible as possible for disabled and deaf people. So the social model of disability is simply a way of thinking about disability, a way of thinking about the issue, a way of thinking about disabled people. That is a really, really useful tool. It really works. And I hope that what you will find, those of you who are not familiar with the social model of disability, that over the next few minutes as we talk about it, that it will simplify the whole issue of disability for you. That's my hope. So the social model of disability was formulated. It was first articulated by disabled people in the late 1970s. And it was formulated by them in reaction against what they saw as the prevalent way, the dominant way of thinking about disability issues, which they characterised as the medical model of disability. And to understand how helpful the social model is, it's useful to look at the medical model and what the medical model is. Because that way we can see how different the social model is, and hopefully that will reveal how helpful the social model is. So the medical model is probably quite familiar to you. The medical model is a way of thinking about disability that tethers, that connects very, very closely someone's disability, so-called, and I'm going to explain why I have slight difficulties with that phrase, but it closely connects someone's disability with their medical condition. And it says that your disability and the medical condition are exactly the same thing. So for example, my medical conditions are that I have spina bifida and curvature of the spine. The medical model says those are my disabilities. So it says I have them, I am a person with disabilities, and those disabilities are the things that limit my participation in society. So for example, let's imagine that I want to go to the British Museum in London, and I turn up to the British Museum in London, and the reality is that with the increased security procedures that the British Museum has to go through, there is a really long queue to get into the British Museum all the time. Now that for me is problematic. The medical model understands that by saying that I've got spina bifida and curvature of the spine, those are my medical conditions, those are my disabilities, those are the things that cause me problems. Okay, so within the medical model of disability, which focuses, as you'll see from this slide, it focuses on the individual, within the medical model of disability, these are the things that cause disability. Things like, for example, these are just examples. Things like cerebral palsy cause disability. Deafness causes disability. The fact that I can't walk far causes disability, that I can't concentrate, that I'm blind, that I can't walk, or that I can't sit still. Those are the things that cause disability. So the medical model, like its name suggests, focuses on the fact that my medical conditions cause me problems. Now that should be quite a familiar way of thinking about disability. The fact that my medical conditions are the things that get in the way. So the social model, on the other hand, focuses on the environment. So the social model says, for example with myself, it's true that I had spina bifida and curvature of the spine. Those are indeed my medical conditions. However, I am not disabled until I try and function, until I try and participate in an environment that is designed for people who are not like me. An environment that is designed for people who don't have the medical conditions that I have. And that environment presents me with obstacles and barriers. And those obstacles and barriers are the things that disable me. So within the social model of disability, the sorts of things that cause disability are not medical conditions. They're things like steps, poor seats, poorly designed seats, poor seating arrangements, heavy doors, high display cabinets, too many words, no seating at all, no sign language. Those are the things that disable me. So within the social model of disability, it's a very different set of causes of disability. Within the medical model, the causes of disability are blindness, deafness, paralysis, accidents, violence, genetic disorders, illness, for example. But within the social model, the things that cause disability are things like steps, cobbles, heavy doors, people's attitudes, employment practices, and poor customer care practices. Now what I'm hoping is that you're starting to see perhaps why the social model makes this so much easier and so much more straightforward. Because you can summarise the social model by saying like the left-hand picture on this slide, that it's about stairs, S-T-A-R-S, physically, flights of stairs, which represent the built environment, the sensory environment. It's also, though, about this right-hand picture, because it's about stairs, S-T-A-R-E-S. The words sound the same in English. They're different words. It's about stairs, S-T-A-R-E-S, because it's about attitude. I can be equally disabled by a flight of steps on the one hand, or by someone's attitude to me on the other hand. What that means in terms of the language that we use is that within the social model, I'm a disabled person. I'm not a person with disabilities. And that's important because it's a verb. It's done to me, so it's what a museum does to people, not an inherent characteristic of the individual. So let's look at the practical implications. What that means is that the social model of disability is all about shifting our focus from the individual and the medical conditions that they have and focusing instead on the environment and the barriers and the obstacles that are a part of the environment. So it means looking for obstacles, training ourselves to be able to recognise things that cause obstacles for people and then seeking creative solutions. It also means recognising that obstacles can be attitudes, they can be expectations, they can be stereotypes and assumptions. They don't need to be tangible. So we have to look at ways we can design them out. Let's look at this table which summarises three key differences between the medical model and the social model, and we can start to tease out what some of those implications, the implications of those differences are for our everyday practice as museums professionals because where the medical model focuses on the individual and says that the individual has the problem, the social model instead, as you can see from this table, focuses on the environment and says it's the environment that has the problem. Now, if that's true, then our job in making sure that we are making our museums accessible for disabled people becomes much easier because the environment is the thing that we know about. It's the thing we have influence over. We don't actually have influence over individuals and we certainly don't have any influence over their medical conditions. So the social model brings this whole area of practice within our sphere of influence. That's really good news. Let's move to the second line of this table. Where the medical model asks, and sometimes it does literally ask, I've been asked this, what's wrong with you? What have you got? What's it called? What's your disability? The social model instead just says, where are the obstacles? What do I need to change? What's not working for you? So it's much more matter of fact. It's a much easier conversation to have. It's a much better question and a much more common sense based conversation to have and question to ask. Moving on to the third row of the table, where the medical model deals in personal information, how long have you had it? What's it called? What percentage of sight loss have you got? The social model only asks for practical information. What do I need to do differently? What do we need to offer in a different way so that you can really enjoy your visit to the museum? So the social model invites us to ask meaningful questions because you could tell me what percentage of sight loss you've got. You could tell me very accurately and in a great deal of detail. For example, you might say I have 83% sight loss in that eye and I have 28% sight loss in that eye and actually that's not useful information because I still don't know how you like to have your information. So the better question is how do you like to access your information? It's a practical question so we don't need to get involved in those conversations that we all feel slightly uncomfortable with because we know that we're dealing in personal information. Within the social model personal information has no currency. The only information that's relevant is practical information. Let's just look at a few more implications and then we'll start to look at some real examples. So the social model is based on what you already know. It's based on your existing expertise because it's about the environment that you work in that you operate that you're a part of. It also, as I've said, is based on the things you have influence over. Thirdly, really importantly you do not require anyone to accept a label. What I mean by that is that the medical model requires that people identify as quotes having disability in order to be entitled to you providing what they need. The social model understands that not everyone who's enrolled actually wants to accept that label and that's fine, that's the individual's privilege. So the social model in asking does anything need to change about this environment to make it easier for you to working, to operating, to enjoy yourself in. In asking that question it's just good visitor services or employment practices. So it becomes a much more straightforward conversation to have. If you adopt social model principles and get in the habit of scanning your environment to check for obstacles and find creative solutions your environment will be improved for lots of people whether they call themselves disabled or not, whether they are disabled or not. And then finally, as I've already said, it avoids inappropriate or embarrassing conversations about people's personal information. So let's look at some examples and the first thing that I want to do is to look at some examples of barriers and obstacles. Oh, there's a question here. How can we make more people aware of the social model of disability and use it? Great question. Thank you. Well it seems to me that one way we can do that is to put it into practice and we can do it. It's very often it's a great question Stephanie because very often even disabled people are not familiar with the social model of disability and sometimes a disabled person will try and give you lots of medical information because they think that's what you need to know and it can be really powerful if in that conversation you actually gently steered them away from that medical information and focus on the information you do need. So you ask questions like or you might say, okay, thank you. So what is it you need to do so that you can have a better experience of this museum? I hope that as we go through these examples then you'll get a fuller answer to your question. Let's look at some examples of barriers and obstacles. I should say by the way that the purpose of sharing these examples with you is not to criticize any individual or any institution. It's to get you used to that notion of scanning your environment and recognizing obstacles. I genuinely believe and you can challenge me on this if you like but I genuinely believe that there is not a single museum or theater or gallery or supermarket or any building that I could go into where I wouldn't find barriers. There are barriers and obstacles all over the place. So this is not about criticizing this is about learning to recognize barriers. So our first barrier is a picture. I'm sure some of you recognize this. This is from the British Museum in London. I'm not going to tell you where all of these come from but this particular one is from the British Museum. Now it's a beautiful space. There's no getting away from it. It's a very, very beautiful space but it's really problematic because everything in this space is white or cream at least. So the floors are cream, the steps are cream, the walls are cream, the handrails are cream everything is cream. What that means is that this environment is not offering any color contrast. If you imagine for a moment that you are someone who relies on color contrast to navigate your way around the space this is really tricky. So can you see that it's not just the really obvious stuff some of this is quite subtle. So this is not great. This is a barrier. Okay moving on. One of my favorites I've actually picked out lots of my favorites to share with you today so I hope they do the job for you but this is an example of where we've got some text. It's white. It's quite large text. You can't necessarily see that from this photograph. It is quite large which is great. It's what we call a sans serif font. It's a clear typeface which is great but it's white on a very kind of very agated stripy wooden background and it's very very difficult to read. Please be careful about where you place text because it can be very difficult to read. So be careful about where you place your text. Another favorite this is a so-called accessible toilet cubicle. It's being used as a storage space and that is very very common. This is a bit extreme because that's actually a chest freezer that's being stored in this accessible toilet which is a bit extreme. That's the only time that I've seen it but having said that I do very often see buckets and other cleaning equipment and so on being stored in an accessible toilet space. To be able to use an accessible toilet cubicle it needs to be kept clear. Accessible toilet cubicles are not storage cupboards for chest freezers or ladders or even lots and buckets. Here we go. Here's another one. This is the front entrance of an art gallery here in the UK. It's rather beautiful. I imagine that the designers were very happy with this design but it's almost impossible to actually see where the entrance is and I'm noticing that more and more it can be very difficult as we use more and more glass. It can be really difficult to identify the front entrance of buildings. So can you see that as you start to get practice you start to see ah yes okay that actually might be an obstacle. This is a blue badge parking bay just outside a museum in Sweden and as you can see this blue badge parking bay has been used as the place to clear all the snow too. That means it's impossible for a disabled person to park in this bay. I hope it's obvious why that isn't acceptable practice. It is very common practice here in the UK but all over the world. It's very common practice that blue badge parking bays are the places where people park to make deliveries, put the skip if they're clearing or refurbishing something. Blue badge parking bays must be kept clear. And then this next and final picture in this section is more subtle because yes there is a flight of steps it's important to recognize that there actually is lift access into this building and that's sign posted but I want you to think for a moment about that second aspect of stairs that I started to introduce you the notion of attitude and my point in including this photograph is that if I arrive at this museum I see a sign that says welcome but I can't actually get into the door that's under the sign that says welcome I have to go and find a different entrance so frankly I don't feel very welcome and it's really important to think not just in terms of can people get in and around but to think in terms of how do people feel they arrive at our museum do they feel welcome do they feel that they're accessing the museum on the same basis as everybody else that's a bit more subtle it's really really important okay so now the good news I'm going to look at examples and I've got a few more of these I'm going to look at examples of where barriers and obstacles either have been removed or haven't been designed in the first place and the first one comes from British Museum again I wanted to give you a good example from the British Museum so the British Museum has a flight of steps up to its main entrance I'm sure most of you know that there are also platform lifts these are platform lifts there's one either side of the main entrance which is really really good practice not only are there platform lifts there's this great sign that advertises that there are platform lifts and it doesn't say that it's a disabled lift which it isn't by the way the lift is not disabled it doesn't even say that it's a lift for wheelchair users this sign implies that this is a lift for anyone who needs it and that's great practice I really really like that it means that you are just welcome to use the lift if you need it here's an example of a museum's project where there are lots of objects that you can access in different ways you can see you can hear you can touch you can experience it in lots and lots of different ways and that is really very good practice to be able to offer people choice and layers as to how they get involved with an artifact or with an exhibition not only that but this particular example is portable so this example can be taken out of the museum and taken into other communities and taken into other contexts where people may spend a great deal of time so they don't even have to come into your museum they don't even have to have the confidence hello sorry I didn't mean to do that I'm just going to go back up to that particular slide they don't even have to have the confidence to go into your museum and they can access some of the fantastic stories that you have available so there's stuff you can see here, stuff you can touch I believe there's also smell involved in this particular exhibition that's really good practice offer lots of different ways in this is a really nice example of how access and accessible piece of information has been designed into the very fabric of the building because what this carpet does is it gives you a very clear route through this particular exhibition it's simple it's basic but it's really really helpful it's not black and white it's coloured but because it offers enough colour contrast then it's usable by all sorts of people so that's a great example here's another example and this I really love because this can easily be provided at very very little cost and that's one of the things I want you to take away from this webinar is that to provide access to your museums and your exhibitions and your artefacts does not necessarily involve spending a lot of money so what the museum has done here is it's taken some of the exhibition some of the objects and some of the interpretation panels and it included them in loose leaf A4 ring binders with really clear text really nice pictures which are the same as the pictures that are on the main display and that people can pick up if they can't get very close to the exhibition and the artefacts then they can access the information anyway this does not cost much money okay we've had a comment it's a pity that our webinar is not accessible for deaf people yes isn't it it may be that we can provide a transcript now whilst that's not perfect because not all deaf people will be able to read and understand the English if they are native sign language users that could be problematic for them nonetheless it would go quite a long way to making this webinar accessible for disabled people but I agree that is a pity if we were doing this in a way that was as inclusive as we possibly could then I would be accompanied by a sign language interpreter however to be honest that would be quite tricky because this is an international webinar so it would be really difficult to decide which language we needed to provide the sign language interpretation into so a better solution would probably be to provide local sign language interpretations of the recording once this goes live on the website good comment though that is a really important comment and is exactly the kind of thing that we need to be thinking about on our websites for example if you go on to their website they do have sign language videos just introductions to some of the information which is great practice and need not cost a great deal of money next example is signage signage is so crucial because way finding is absolutely fundamental to how people use museums especially big buildings but not only big buildings and actually this is also about people finding your museum so I wonder how many of you on your museum websites have really clear comprehensive information about how to find you from public transport that can be really important information for people now I love this signage because it's clear text the typeface is really really clear but also it uses pictures which is fantastic it becomes very clear if you want to see this exhibit then you have to go up the stairs it shows where there is an accessible toilet it shows you a picnic area it shows you the basic information somebody has commented maybe a good solution is having subtitles yes that would be great it's quite tricky to provide subtitles live so it may be that we might be able to provide subtitles on the version that goes on the website providing subtitles live is can be quite difficult it's not impossible it can be quite difficult yes absolutely captions maybe we can talk after the webinar about the possibility of providing a transcript of this presentation of this webinar on the website and that will support anyone for whom the fact that this is only in spoken English is a barrier and I do recognise that okay so signage is important here we go seating seating it can make such a huge difference to whether people can enjoy themselves at your museum or not and these portable seats are not expensive and if you have a supply of these portable seats that people can borrow take around the museum with them use whenever they want to and then return that can be a really good solution and remove a lot of barriers for people this photograph here illustrates one example of actually telling disabled people stories so this is an exhibition it's a display that set out to challenge some of the stereotypes about disabled people you can see Superman there because one of the stereotypes about disabled people can be that all disabled people are superheroes and we're inspiring and we manage adversity every day and that's a bit of a lazy stereotype and it can be really empowering and really enlightening and exciting and interesting to debunk some of those stereotypes important to remember too to tell disabled people stories not just as separate exhibitions or separate displays but as part of all the other stories that you tell if anybody is interested there's a document I'm sure you can find it on the web I will find a link and then include it in the version of this that goes on to the website there's a document entitled Buried in the Footnotes it was written well over 10 years ago but it is still relevant and it's about how disabled people stories are marginalized I'm going to move on because we're rapidly running out of time this photograph just illustrates how when you do things that allow people to get involved with objects to put them on to touch them to smell them to feel them then you are removing barriers not just for disabled people but for all sorts of people here's another example of that handle the shards says the invitation you can actually put your hands in the sand and handle those shards of pottery this is an example of a really nice clear interpretation panel there are some pictures there's some really lovely clear text good visual contrast a really nice typeface really nice example and here's an example of an access guide now the reason I've included this and I'm sorry that it's another example from the British Museum but it is the best example that I've come across the reason I've included this is not just because it's really good practice to have an access guide but one of the things that I love about this access guide is that it's beautiful it has the same production standards as all of the other literature that the British Museum produces so some museums may provide access information but it's on photocopied shoots of A4 paper fine it does the job but it might make me feel a little bit rubbish that everyone else is looking at beautifully produced full colour documents that are illustrated with lovely photographs and my information is on photocopied shoots of A4 that's just text so just an example of thinking about those sorts of details another photograph that emphasises the importance of seating you can easily incorporate seating into your galleries in a way that is consistent with the general aesthetic of your gallery they don't have to be ugly seats can fit with the overall visual language of your galleries here's an example that shows that you can actually use colour quite subtly but you can use colour to make sure that you're providing visual contrast so these sculptures are cream a kind of ivory colour fairly obviously put them against dark background and they become easier for lots of people to appreciate now this is clever okay this is an example of something that is quite expensive but this is an example of where we might be going in five or six years so this is an example of using projection mapping to allow people to gain information that they can read see really nice formats visually very clear these sculptures are not electronic tablets that people are holding they're just sheets of cardboard and yet the information from the particular place name on the map then is projected onto that individual piece of cardboard that you're holding so you can access it in a way that is convenient to you really exciting currently very expensive there's only a few examples in museums using this sorts of technology that we're headed so to sum up just in the last two minutes that I've got available to me to sum up really this is about removing barriers is about the three C's it's about offering as much choice as you possibly can to people for how they can access what it is your museum has to offer it's about consulting talk to people about what you're doing is actually giving them what they need don't make assumptions in other words and it's about creativity we're all creative otherwise we wouldn't be working in museums so it's about finding creative solutions and those creative solutions just to emphasise may not be expensive you might want to commission an access survey that's a really good place to start a good access survey where the barriers are in your museum and offer suggestions for how you can remove them don't be afraid of prioritising you don't have to do all of this stuff overnight prioritise do the things that you can do easily quickly and cheaply and that way you will get momentum going in your organisation use the visitor journey so start with the main entrance start with how people get into your museum and use existing opportunities so if you're refurbishing or redesigning a gallery or an exhibition then start right at the planning process so that you make sure that you are building out barriers and obstacles and building in an accessible environment so I just want to finish by sharing my email address feel free to contact me I'm really happy to deal with simple questions if a question starts to get more complicated and involves a more detailed answer then I might sign post you elsewhere but do get in touch if you've got any particular questions okay are there any more questions that anybody wants to ask because I made that an hour and I think we're out of time Paolo are we out of time if anyone has a question now is a really good time to ask it I'm just going to have a look somebody said the Royal Academy of Arts in London access programme um yeah we can continue if there are questions are there any more questions what about museums in open archaeological sites what barriers to access there are going to be a lot of physical barriers to access there's no question but there may be things you can do with laying down temporary pathways that are easy for people to access I mean I think this is a particularly interesting question because one of the things that that identifies is that health and safety considerations and risk assessments which all of you will do if you're working on open archaeological sites will also feed into considerations about access for disabled and deaf people because if something is dangerous across the board generally for people then it's not going to be very accessible for disabled and deaf people conversely if you actually think about the steps that you can take to remove barriers and obstacles to disabled people you will be doing a great deal to ensure that your sites are safer how do you promote inclusion without excluding others I quite know what you mean inclusion for me is about as I've tried to emphasise it's about ensuring that you offer as much choice as possible so really good inclusive practice shouldn't exclude anybody else in fact that you're providing lots of ways into the interpretation but it shouldn't mean excluding anybody else including disabled people in the designing of such actions absolutely yes the earlier you can involve disabled people in everything that you do if you can find disabled and deaf web designers disabled and deaf graphic designers disabled and deaf exhibition designers then absolutely that's fantastic what I would say is just make sure as well that you consult more widely because it's really important to get a breath of responses who did the exhibition about stories of disabled people is it still up? sadly no that particular display was part of the opening exhibition in Gothenburg in Sweden and sadly no, it's no longer up I'm just going to see if I can find any more interesting, relevant questions that we haven't is there a world database of good practices about good museology not the time aware of there's certainly examples of good practice on the internet the museum's association in the UK has lots of really useful information the Balkan Museum's network and you can find their website has a disability toolkit that I contributed to now we're currently in the process of updating that but that is already and will continue to be even better as a resource with lots of signposting and lots of useful information so there's information there and we've got just looking through the questions people, if you look on the main chat people have actually posted lots of examples so that's brilliant yes, making sure that, thank you this is really, really important I mentioned it in the context of seating but it's really important that anything that you design in or anything that you put into your galleries and exhibitions and museum spaces that is designed for disabled and deaf people in mind please make it fit with the aesthetic of the space because otherwise it's going to be clunky it's going to be clumsy and it might be really tricky then for people actually to think about accessing it but part of the general ethos and aesthetic of your museum the more people will access it and the more people will actually find it useful okay, we've got loads of examples being helpfully posted in the main chat so do look there for other examples good case study on the research centre for museums and galleries, University of Leicester yeah, University of Leicester did some really important work buried in the footnotes document that I mentioned earlier they're doing some great work and they've recently collaborated with deaf and disabled artists to explore notions of disabled people's stories and how they're presented in collections yep, okay I can't immediately identify any other questions that can easily answer in this particular context YouTube does provide captions they're not necessarily very accurate but yes it does okay I think I'm going to wrap it up there just to emphasise, please get in touch with me look back on this webinar again because it will be on the website and I hope that you found it useful thank you very much, goodbye