Audio Description Project
Audio Description Project
The Audio Description Project (ADP) subcommittee on Performing Arts, Museums, and Parks advocates with those groups to include audio description whenever possible.
The Audio Description Performing Arts, Museums, and Parks Sub-committee continues to raise awareness about and advocate for audio description in the arts field. We have been busy collaborating with various sites to promote a wider availability of audio description. Our recent accomplishments include:
Our committee members are working hard to promote audio description across the arts and make entertainment and information more accessible to people who are blind or low vision.
The American Council of the Blind Audio Description Project Performing Arts, Museums and Parks Sub-Committee has had a busy, productive spring, spearheading new advocacy initiatives and creating exciting cutting-edge virtual and in-person programming for ACB's National Convention in Omaha, Nebraska. These advocacy initiatives include discussions with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum leadership, on innovative ways to seamlessly integrate audio description into their museum, to increase its accessibility to visitors who are blind or have low vision. Two sub-committee members are conducting tide-turning investigative behind the scenes research on the availability and quality of professional audio described cruise ship entertainment that will be published in the ACB Braille Forum this fall. In addition, members of our sub-committee are working with the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals (ACVREP) Audio Description Certification Development Subject Matter Expert Committee, with their efforts to establish a certification process for the field of audio description in the United States and internationally. Members are also working with the University of Hawaii Communications Department on their National Endowment for the Humanities and Google funded project to make U.S. National Park Service online brochures accessible through audio description. Finally, several of our members have spent many thoughtful hours selecting the Award Winners for the ACB Audio Description Awards Ceremony, and selecting the audio described national museum/park video tours presented during the ACB National Convention, on the ACB Media Network. Submitted by Sheila Young, Chair.
The Audio Description Project is guided by a Steering Committee and six subcommittees. Periodically we offer reports of subcommittee activity. This report was submitted by Committee Chair Sheila Young.
We on the ACB/ADP Performing Arts, Museums and Parks subcommittee have had a busy productive spring and summer filled with exciting national Audio Description Project outreach engagements. These activities have included conducting presentations at the American Alliance of Museums and the ACB's annual national conference on the importance of providing high quality professional audio description of media/theater/exhibits to their constituents with low vision/blindness. One of our ACB conference sessions featured a dynamic expert panel discussion on best practices for audio describers when describing an individual's race, gender and or disability.
Our subcommittee members are also initiating collaborations with our colleagues at several US presidential libraries to expand their audio described exhibit offerings. Additionally, we are embarking on an advocacy partnership with accessible theater activist Mark Lasser, to ensure the availability of live audio description throughout New York City's network of Broadway Theaters. Many of our members as well are in the midst of preparing to return as volunteer audio describers and consultants in October at Descriptathon 8, a program co-sponsored by the University of Hawaii Communications Department and the US National Park Service, to create audio described national park brochures for park guests with low vision/blindness.
