|
               Accessibility
|
     |
Harewood House leads the way
Harewood House, near Leeds, has installed new Audio Guides, and is providing audio tours free of charge to all visitors to the house at the start of the new season. However, the Audio Guide is only one of the methods being used to deliver tours to its visitors. They are also being offered on Ipods, MP3 Players, Mobile Phones and PDAs, again, all free of charge.
This ground breaking approach means that a visitor to Harewood can download tours to their Ipod, MP3 Player or some mobile phones either before they arrive at a special website (www.talking-guides.co.uk/harewood), or at a special ‘Download Centre’ at reception.
It has signed a contract with ATS Heritage, an Audiotour company with customers such as Balmoral Castle, Mary Rose Museum, and many more. Their technology is marketed as Talking Guides™ and Harewood House is one of the first Talking Guide sites to totally embrace the concept of delivering its interpretation on a wide variety of devices.
At the moment visitors can choose from a Tour of the State Rooms featuring a narration by Lord Harewood, or a ‘Below Stairs’ Tour with colourful interviews with some of the people that have worked there. Later in the year tours will be introduced in foreign languages, and the concept will be extended to Palmtop PCs and a multimedia Tour will be provided. Mick Stanley, Head of Collections, Learning and Access, said that they chose ATS Heritage because they loved their dynamic and embracing approach to providing interpretation for visitors. “The modern Heritage site must constantly look forward and ATS presented a solution that does not stand still”. Not only will visitors get great value by including free audiotours but we are hoping to attract more of the ‘Ipod wearing’ younger visitors to come and see how much Harewood has to offer.
Mike Howie, Managing Director of ATS Heritage, stated that this was, "another great step towards dispelling the stuffy reputation of audioguides". There is a great team at Harewood and we are looking forward to a long term and close relationship.
For more information on Harewood House call John Martin on
For more information on Talking Guides call Mike Howie – 07774 983602
Or ATS Heritage on 023 9259 5000
