Technology Aids Access to Disability-Rights Exhibit

By NICOLE WALLACE

The National Museum of American History, in Washington, is using technology to make its new exhibit on the disability-rights movement accessible to people with disabilities.

Located next to a powerful symbol of the civil-rights movement — a section of the lunch counter from the F.W. Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, N.C., where students led a sit-in in the 1960’s — the exhibit features objects associated with the efforts people with disabilities have made to gain equal rights.

Glass cases display artifacts such as the pen that George Bush used to sign the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and a 1905 cemetery headstone, inscribed with only a number, that marked the grave of a woman who was committed to a state hospital because she had epilepsy.

Two kiosks — one the height of a standing adult and another at wheelchair level — re-create the exhibit in formats that are accessible to people with and without disabilities. All the information is available as both text and audio.

People who can read the text navigate through the information using touch screens. Blind people — and others who prefer to listen to the information — can click on the kiosk’s buttons to move through the exhibit. The kiosk reads their choices aloud; when they find a section that interests them, they press a button to listen to a description.

To get there: Go to http://americanhistory.si.edu/disabilityrights.