July 02: A new feature has been added at the Homestead National Monument designed to help the visually impaired.
It’s called an ‘audio descriptive tour’ and is designed to give people a verbal description of the exhibits on display.

“It’s a description of what we visually see,” said Park Superintendent Mark Engler. “A person wanting to experience the exhibit?the verbiage or text that comes across on the transmitter gives a description of what others are seeing.”

Engler said the description includes colors and information that is found on the panels or banners in the exhibit. He said it’s one of the most comprehensive systems in the National Park System.

Engler said when the Heritage Center opened in 2007, the goal was to make it fully accessible to everybody. He said by adding this system, they are working toward accomplishing that goal.

Tim Elms, an AV Equipment Specialist for the National Park Service said the Homestead is the second national park in the U.S to implement this kind of system. The first was the Indian Burial Grounds in New York City.

Not only does system describe the exhibits, but it can help visually impaired people with their barrings by describing the building.
The system operates through identifiers, which are located throughout the Homestead. Each exhibit has a battery operated identifier attached that emits an RF signal. There are 18 identifiers in this system.

“When a person walks close to exhibit, the device sends out a constant RF code that will be received by a device being carried by the guests,” Elms said. “It will then send the audio from a .wav (wave form audio) file that’s sent to the speaker and the person will hear what the exhibit is about.”

Elm said the device will give a brief description at first, but if a person wants to hear more, they can enter a three digit number and get more information.

“The user can control how much they want to hear about each exhibit,” Engler said.

Elms said the $145,000 project will take a little over a week to install and will be ready to go by the end of this week.
Engler said the system will also extend to outdoor exhibits.

Elms said people who are visually impaired do research to find locations that have an audio tour. He expects visitation numbers to increase because of the new system.

Engler said it was a goal to have the system installed before the Special Olympics so that when people come into the area with this particular special need, they’ll have a place to go. He said the system isn’t limited to visually impaired people, but rather anybody who wants to learn more about each exhibit.

“We hope people utilize it,” Engler said. “We believe this is a world class facility and a system like this will further define it as what it is, a place to tell America’s homesteading story.”

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