May 17, 2012
GLBT History Museum Launches Free Audio Guide and Online Store
Mark Thompson READ TIME: 2 MIN.
San Francisco, CA - The GLBT History Museum has created a dynamic new tool to help visitors discover the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender life in San Francisco. Anyone with a cell phone or smartphone can listen to a digital audio tour. Museum-goers can hear exhibition curators provide new insights and tell deeper stories; also included are historic audio clips and recollections from community members.
"The audio tour takes you beyond what you learn from the texts and labels in the display cases," notes Don Romesburg, one of the curators of "Our Vast Queer Past," the museum's main gallery show. "The tour explores why we chose certain themes and what we find most compelling. Sometimes it's a closer look at one object, telling its backstory or highlighting details you might otherwise miss. Other times, we point out bigger issues a case raises.
"Even if you've already visited the museum, you should check out the audio tour," Romesburg adds. "It's like having the curators personally guide you through a whole new perspective. Even better, you can hang up and move to another part whenever you like."
Funding for the digital phone service that supports the tour for 2012 was provided by museum volunteer Daniel Morvant through a grant from his employer, Wells Fargo. Multimedia producer John Raines donated his recording and editing skills to give the tour a fully professional polish.
The audio tour is divided into two dozen separate one-minute sections, and visitors can listen to any or all of them by entering the appropriate section number into their cell phones or smartphones. The tour is free with the price of admission to the museum (customary phone charges apply).
The museum also has recently launched a new online store, as well as a new series of postcards available exclusively at the museum itself:
Looking for that perfect gift for the history buff in your life? Searching for the ideal mug to tastefully signal "Hey, I'm queer" at the office? Ready to buy a smart homo t-shirt for yourself -- or even an LGBT-friendly apron for that backyard barbecue? The GLBT History Museum's new online store offers it all.
New postcards reproducing images by each of the five photographers in the museum's critically acclaimed new exhibition "Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990" are now available exclusively at the brick-and-mortar shop at the museum. The exhibition runs through July 1 in the museum's Front Gallery.
The GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States. Currently featured are two major exhibitions: "Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating San Francisco's GLBT History" and "Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990."
The museum is a project of the GLBT Historical Society, a research center and archives founded in 1985 that houses one of the world's largest collections of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender historical materials.
For more information, visit www.glbthistory.org
Visit www.zazzle.com/glbthistorymuseum
A long-term New Yorker and a member of New York Travel Writers Association, Mark Thompson has also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. The author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE, he has a PhD in American Studies and is the recipient of fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His work has appeared in numerous publications.
