ADA Business Connection: Maintaining Accessibility in Museums

Museum Investments in Access

Since the 1970s, numerous museums across the country have initiated efforts to improve the accessibility of their buildings and programs for visitors with disabilities. Today, museums that invest time and money to remove barriers from their facilities, design accessible exhibitions, and provide effective communication for their programs can potentially attract to their doors more than 50 million Americans with disabilities, more than 20 million families with members who have disabilities, and millions of graying Baby Boomers. (3,4) Elements such as entrances without stairs, exhibit labels that can be read by visitors who are seated or standing, large-print exhibition brochures, and captioned multimedia programs help museums reach this huge and growing audience.

The key to protecting these investments is maintaining the accessibility that has been put into place -- both the general features of a public accommodation and features and programs that particularly define a museum experience. When accessibility programs and services are discontinued or accessible building features are blocked by temporary exhibitions or removed during renovations, the loss of invested time and money can be substantial.