In addition to providing a wealth of free information, ABS offers services to help museums provide meaningful experiences for people with disabilities. Fees are charged for these services. For details, call the ABS office at (212) 334-8720 or send an email to administrator@artbeyondsight.org. Depending on your museum’s needs, ABS can work with your staff to:
Create Tactile Diagrams of your collection highlights
Create Tactile Diagrams of museum façades, maps, floor plans, grounds
Write and record Verbal Descriptions, enhanced with sound and music
Produce an audio tour of the Verbal Descriptions for your museum. Write and produce audio description for videos or films.
Produce an accessible website of your collection highlights that features tactiles, and verbal descriptions in audio and text. (See Jasper Jones’s Three Flags from American Art, a website we produced with the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.)
Art Beyond Sight Trainings
Note: All trainings can be adapted for specialized groups, including educators, curators, docents, administrators, trustees, security, visitor services, and exhibit, Web, and graphic designers.
Trainings – Level I
Disability Awareness Training
Accessibility Tools Training
Verbal Description Workshop
Trainings/Consultations – Level II
Tactile Diagram Making & the Writing of Narratives
Art Curricula for Specialized Populations
Best Practices in Accessible/Inclusive Museum Programs
Universal Design and Cultural Institutions’ Best Practices
Disability Legislation and Cultural Institutions
Specialized Curricula Workshops
Art and Independent Living Skills for Students with Disabilities
Museum/School Partnership Curricula
Using Art History Through Touch and Sound in the Gallery and Classroom
Teaching American Art Through Multiple Modalities
Art Programs for Seniors: Multi-Sensory Memoirs
Art Programs for Veterans
Working Groups
For museum professionals who attended Level I courses, we offer on-site or teleconference working groups.
Working Group with Museum Education Department on the ABCs of Access
Museum Team: Working with your Team from Trustees to Security
Advisory Group and Audience Research
Conceptualizing a Pilot Program Using Existing Resources
Outreach and Community Partnerships
Running a Successful Open House with Review and Evaluation
Staff and Docent Annual Training
Strategies to Make Your Program Last
Employment and Internships for Students with Disabilities
Customized Resources for Educators
Other Services
Initial Accessibility Survey for Museums
Museum Programmatic Access Evaluation
Museum Web Accessibility Survey
Art Beyond Sight Certificate
This certificate recognizes the high standards of a museum’s programs for people with disabilities. To qualify, a museum must have successfully completed the Institute’s Museum Programmatic Accessibility Evaluation, showing that its programs and tours for people with vision loss and other disabilities meet the same standards and objectives as the programs for visitors without disabilities.
