Jamie Melissa Wilms, Director of Education, Molly Brown House Museum

Proposal Type

Panel

Seeking
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking Specific Expertise
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
Related Topics
  • Civic Engagement
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Place
Abstract

The Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, CO is currently striving to make it’s 120+ year old home accessible to all.  With a new lift installed, the museum for the first time in 47 years, can allow guests see the home who have never been able to in the past.  The museum has not only opened up to those with limitations in mobility, but continue to work to offer  opportunities for those with various levels of sight, hearing, and even language barriers creating multi-sensory experiences for all.  In 2018, the museum will move forward in working with those with Alzheimers and memory loss.

Description

The goals of this is to give ideas and help give other institutions ideas on how to make their museum accessible to all different types of people.  This will include resources for other organizations to work with, federal law mandates, and hands-on demonstrations of some of the museums accessibility tools.

I would like to find another panelist who has experience in this as well, maybe someone on the legal side of requirements for different types of people.  I would also like to know if this is something NCPH conference attendees would be interested in this type of topic.


If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Jamie Melissa Wilms, [email protected]

If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.

All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 2, 2017.

Discussion

2 comments
  1. Laura Koloski says:

    Hi Jamie,
    There’s an organization here in Philadelphia called Art-Reach that works with arts and culture presenters to bring greater accessibility to their programming: http://www.art-reach.org. It might be worth reaching out to them to see if they could help you with resources and examples of good practice in this work. One of the things I think is interesting about building accessibility into programs/spaces is that it has the potential to add richness to the experience for other users/participants as well, so it might be worthwhile to think about your topic from that perspective as well. In other words, how can addressing accessibility issues enliven or deepen the experience for all visitors?

  2. Mike Dove says:

    I think enhancing the accessibility of buildings and exhibits to include these much broader needs is a pervasive issue and one that would prove attractive to a good many NCPH conference attendees. This topic may also be considered for a working group, or perhaps in future, as a workshop (which I would eagerly attend!)

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