Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Launches New Exhibit: MAKING HISTORY ACCESSIBLE

The Intrepid Museum, a national historic landmark, today announced the launch of Making History Accessible, a temporary exhibit that invites visitors to test and evaluate a series of five digital and physical experiences that seek to make exhibits at historic sites and house museums more accessible and inclusive.

These five experiences are prototypes, the result of collaborative work among staff at the Intrepid Museum, New York University's Ability Project, selected historic site and house museums and disability advocates. Access Smithsonian and National Trust for Historic Preservation served as advisors.

Visitors are invited to experience the concepts and evaluate their effectiveness. The feedback will help the partner sites improve the prototype at their site. From all of the evaluation and feedback at the partner sites - taking place in spring/summer 2022 - the team will create a digital guide to enable historic site and house museums nationwide to reproduce these low-cost digital and physical projects.

The exhibit includes the "Bring Your Own Accessible Device" project, through which users can use their personal devices to access exhibit information using their preferred accessibility settings. It helps guests navigate the Museum and offers a wide range of content, including spaces that are not fully physically accessible. Visitors who are blind can access detailed descriptions of exhibits, spaces and wayfinding. Neurodiverse visitors can use the guide to help plan a visit, remember what they saw afterward and get content in different formats. Additionally, all audio content is captioned and transcribed for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, have audio processing delays or who prefer not to play sound. Those unable to visit the Museum due to health concerns, distance or otherwise can also access this information in the comfort of their own home.

"In the United States, more than 25 percent of people live with some kind of disability, visible or invisible, and as our population ages, the percentage of people with disabilities grows as well," said Elaine Charnov, the Intrepid Museum's Senior Vice President of Exhibits, Education & Programs. "These installations will allow us to find ways to better serve our diverse audiences and make learning more inclusive and accessible. Everyone benefits when we make our stories and exhibits available to people of all ages and abilities."

Of the 33,000 museums in the United States, 15,000 are historic site and house museums. This designation is given to active and vital spaces that provide connections to our nation's history. They include historic houses, gardens, or even decommissioned aircraft carriers, such as Intrepid. Historic site and house museums are required to protect and preserve the integrity of historic structures and built landscapes. They must also provide access to all visitors.

To learn more, visit Current Exhibitions at the Intrepid Museum.