In the A Sense of Space exhibit, artists move away from traditional museum standards and ways of exploring art mainly by allowing it to be touched (this has been a hot topic of discussion among my classmates). Imagine for instance exploring a famous Monet painting through touch and getting a sense of the artists' style by way of the feel of the brush strokes or following the lines of a classical Greek sculpture to identify the idealized silhouette from that period. This approach bridges a major gap.
But how many visually impaired people study history? I have not personally come across any! This bothers me, because just like exploring art, I know how exciting and rewarding the study of primary research can be and how vital it is to historical analysis. Also, our society does not always consider the issues that visually impaired face in academia such as having Braille sources available along with other tools such as magnifiers for reading. In the case of libraries, understanding that it can take longer for visually impaired patrons to read books, meaning they require longer loan periods is just one of the many practical details.
According to Student Development Services at University of Western Ontario, there are 5 students who are completely blind and many others who have different levels of visual impairment at the school. The university assists these students in a number of ways from having textbooks transcribed into Braille (which has to be planned a year in advance), proctoring examinations or providing access to adaptive computer technologies. Fortunately, popular screen readers for those with visual impairments such as JAWS (Job Access with Speech) appear to be more easily available than they once were.
Access to computers and the Internet has opened many doors. However, the same old story of the rapidly changing computer technology poses problems. For instance, although JAWS reads most PDF’s, some older versions are still inaccessible for tagging which is a great tool for visually impaired, so these require OCR. Refreshable Braille displays are another excellent tool for computer usage as they allow for the user to become familiar with the screen formatting through a machine that translates computer information into raised dots. It puts into words details like windows or sidebars which can get complicated with new types of computer programs. This is typically used along with a screen reader.
Although these systems will face challenges, there have been some great innovations in this field of communications and design which are providing the visually impaired with valuable tools of access. I predict we will see a new community of historians in the near future who will bring along with them dynamic ways of seeing and interpreting history. So let us keep up the digitizing and move over to make some space!
Interested in exploring new ways of seeing? Check out A Sense of Space: Blind Culture which runs from March 6-April 6 at the McIntosh Gallery located on the University of Western Ontario campus.
