Touching the Past: Enhancing Accessibility for Richmond’s Visually Impaired Community and Others to Virginia’s Heritage through 3-D Printing

Summary

The Virtual Curation Laboratory (VCL) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), VCU’s School of Education, and VCU’s Leadership for Empowerment and Abuse Prevention (LEAP) have partnered with the Richmond-based Virginia Historical Society (VHS) to create three-dimensional (3-D) printed replicas of objects in their collections with the goal of increasing access to community members, especially those that are visually impaired. The Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired (DBVI) is assisting with implementation of the proposed project. The VCL is working with VHS to 3-D scan items in their collections with the greatest educational value, and is creating object-based lessons for the visually impaired and others that incorporate 3-D printed replicas with guidance from the VCU School of Education, VCU LEAP, and the DBVI. This presentation will showcase how 3-D scanning and 3-D printing can enhance access to individuals that are traditionally marginalized at museums and other cultural heritage locations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Intersection of Technology and Public Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 145