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issue 2 january-february 2005
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Headlines : INTERNATIONAL news
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At Perkins School for the Blind, new museum is accessible to all

The Boston Globe; November 2004

What's the least-known world-famous institution in Greater Boston? A prime candidate would be the Perkins School for the Blind. Thanks to its most celebrated alumnae, Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan, Perkins long ago earned an international reputation. Yet how many people know anything more about it?

Perkins, which is celebrating the 175th anniversary of its founding, hopes to do something about that. A new museum devoted to the school's history opens to the public tomorrow. ''We're very excited about it," says Steven M. Rothstein, Perkins's President. ''It's very important to have the legacy on display."

The museum looks much as one might expect any gallery space to look: display cases, photographs, interactive computer stations, objects of historical interest. On closer examination, two key differences emerge. The display cases aren't glassed in, and inside each case is a flat white surface about waist high. The surfaces look to be bases for yet-to-be-installed objects. In fact, the surfaces are there to offer Braille explanatory texts. At the Perkins museum, touching is a form of seeing.

''One of the issues we had to address was knowing there would be several kinds of visitors," explains Bob Segal, an independent museum designer who helped set up the displays.

The museum is conscious of needing to serve not just sighted visitors but also those who are blind, deaf-blind, visually impaired, or otherwise handicapped. ''To reach everybody so this was accessible to all visitors was a real challenge," Segal says.

Segal, who's done exhibits for such institutions as the Worcester Art Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, found setting up the Perkins displays to be more liberating than daunting. ''We're doing things a fine-arts museum would cringe at. We're using fluorescent lighting. We have objects out in the open -- to touch as well as see. Always we come back to the same question: Is it a teaching object or a fine-arts object?"

''Teaching" was the invariable answer, but that doesn't gainsay the great beauty of many of the objects. They range from the pocket watch of Samuel Gridley Howe, the school's first director and the Howe Building's namesake, to a dozen Braillers, typewriters whose keys substitute Braille dots for letters.

A text on Euclidean geometry from the mid-19th century has the diagrams sewn in, so students could ''read" them with their fingers. Chess and checker sets include gridded surfaces to let blind players keep track of their pieces. Perhaps the most memorable item is a self-standing globe with raised surfaces. Dating from 1837, it's more than four feet in diameter and incorporates some 700 pieces of wood.

Further complicating Segal's job has been the fact the museum is not a discrete part of the building. It also functions as a corridor, with displays lining the sides of the space. ''They used the hall the whole time we were working on it," says Betsy McGinnity, the school's Coordinator of Information Services. ''Usually, Bob's worked in galleries closed to the public. This one wasn't, which meant he got to hear people's opinions as he was setting things up."

''Yeah," Segal says with a laugh, ''I'd hear both sides: cursing and complimenting." Segal's having to work in public led to one of his happiest moments doing the installation. It involved his building a three-dimensional map of the school. ''When the kids could touch the map and visualise the campus," he says, ''they'd break out into big grins. And that was just great."

The Perkins School for the Blind is at 175 North Beacon St., Watertown. The school's museum is located in the Howe Building. For information call 617-972-7767.

Other World News stories in this issue:
Rock Hall open Ray Charles exhibit
Help for visually impaired jobseekers offered by online mentors
Device helps blind persons keep up-to-date
Gadget to help easy mobility for visually-impaired persons
British disability swimming performance director nominated for the BBC Coach of the Year award

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