Illustrated Audio Opportunities

(above: Edward Lamson Henry, Can They Go Too, 1877, oil on board, 6 x 4-5/16 inches. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

Presentation of a single object

A museum web site can highlight a single object in its collections section. Winslow Homer's Right and Left from the National Gallery of Art is a stand-alone 161 second narrated show featuring one painting in the collection. The narration is by Nicolai Cikovsky Jr., senior curator of American and British paintings. A transcript is included with the presentation. The narration rate averages 3 seconds per word. (Real Networks RealPlayer).

The Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Elizabeth Broun, narrates a multi-part slide show about thirteeen favorite art works in the Museum's collection. As an example, there is a five part narration on Vegetable Dinner, a 1927 painting by Peter Blume. (QuickTime)

Once a museum has digitized images of the objects in the permanent collection, a next step would be to have curators systematically interpret objects in the collection via illustrated audio segments. Each segment would use the previously digitized images of the object as the visual elements. A logical starting point for such a program would be the most important works in the collection.

If a museum elects to digitize text resources such as exhibition catalogues, gallery guides and member magazines, illustrated audio segments can be cross linked to the digitized text resources relating to the objects.

(above: William Henry von Herwig, Old Mission, 1924, oil on burlap, 34 x 30 inches. Private Collection. Baptismal font is shown temporarily relocated from present location while conservation underway in Serra Chapel.)

rev. 11/24/04

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