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Description
Create a self-guided audio tour of the permanent art collection at the CLC Grayslake Campus similar to the experience at large museums.
Objectives
Encourage self-guided exploration and interaction with extensive permanent art collection at the CLC Grayslake Campus in a way that would be accessible to a variety of users with varying levels of technology skill. Work within a limited budget and limited staff resources.
Project Details
I had just returned from a trip to Europe where several of the museums I visited offered self-guided audio tours via a commercial service that included pre-recorded audio on a mp3-like device. The art gallery staff had been giving campus art tours to students and local community groups at that time but feared they would have to cut the service due to limited resources and growing program needs. I looked into the commercial service on behalf of the gallery and found it to be cost-prohibitive. I suggested an alternative home-grown method of creating information scripts and recording prominent people in the CLC community then storing those files on ipods that could be checked out from the library. The files would also be made available on the art gallery website so that individuals could download them onto their own mp3 player or phone. I then created QR codes that were placed along side each piece in the tour, which could be scanned by a smart phone and lead users directly to the audio files related to the individual pieces. Visitors who did not have mp3 players or smart phones were able to check them out from the library, and those that did have their own technology could either download or stream the tour based on their preference.
I planned out the necessary equipment which included 6 ipods for lending, 1 ipod for portable audio recording, an ipod microphone. This came in well under budget when compared to the commercial service.
The gallery curator wrote the scripts and worked with the 'talent' to record the audio onto an ipod which I then cleaned up and edited. I created a section on the gallery website to hold the audio tour files, along with various images of the artwork and transcripts of the audio. This allowed website visitors to take the tour virtually if they could not come to campus.
I also created a tour map with additional information which was included with the ipods at the library.
This project took about 6 months to complete from start to finish and was well received, particularly by high-school faculty who brought their students in as a supplement to their work in the classroom as part of the college's outreach program.
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