1. I would like to acknowledge the importance of AHRB funding to this project. Thankyou also to Stella Wisdom whose work as the research assistant on this programme was invaluable.
2. On the use of terms here: from the mid 1970s onwards terms such as ‘handicapped’ or‘the blind’were replaced by‘people with disabilities’ ‘people with visual impairments’ thus emphasising that disability was a element of subjectivity rather than its determining factor. More recently activist groups have begun to refer to ‘disabled people’ and ‘blind people’ thereby indicating their presence as a constituency group who are highlighting their specific needs. As only a minority of people who are legally blind have no vision the term ‘visual impairment’ is more representative of majority experience. It does however imply a norm of full non‐impaired sight rather than blindness or partial sight being a different experience of the world which is valid in its own right. Given this implication and the emphasis here on how blind people are constructed by the museum I referto‘blind people’.
3. JFS interview 1 st May 2002
4. Group discussion ‘A Multi‐sensory experience?