Round Table: Museum Programs for the Blind and Visually Impaired. From Experience

From 29 to 31 March 2011 a Round Table Museum Programs for the Blind and Visually Impared was held at the Restoration and Storage Center Staraya Derevnya.

For the first time the State Hermitage has gathered professionals working with the blind and visually impaired from museums in Russia: of Saratov, Stavropol, Azov, Khanty-Mansiysk, Kaliningrad, Moscow and St Petersburg and the Louvre, of Paris, as well as pedagogues of special schools.

Participants discussed the technology of working with visually impaired adults and children, the role of museums in the programs of adaptation, a combination of museum and school curricula.

The staff of the State Hermitage shared their experience in implementing the program they developed The Past at Your Fingertips. Within the framework of the round table they held a public lesson in the archaeological class with a group of visually impaired and blind children.

N.N. Nikolayev, senior researcher at the Department of Archeology, Eastern Europe and Siberia

E.A. Shablavina, senior researcher at the Department of Archeology, Eastern Europe and Siberia

At the Restoration and Storage Centre Staraya Derevnya

Cyrille Gouyette, head of the Sector of Art Education, Education Division, the Louvre, Paris

In the archaeological class