The McLean County Museum of History has launched its first Spanish language audio tour in an effort to expand access to its collections.
The new web-based app allows people to use their own cellphones and headphones while touring one of the museum's key galleries.
“We strive to share the diverse stories of the people of McLean County, and we want people to be able to access those stories regardless of language barriers,” said Micaela Harris, the museum's communications director, adding she hopes this is the first of many translation projects.
The downtown Bloomington museum took advantage of its popular Day of the Dead celebration to kick off the Spanish audio guide. More than 300 attended the Nov. 1 event that shared the Mexican holiday honoring ancestors. Many who attended were Spanish speakers, making it an ideal time to unveil the interactive tool, said Harris.
The app includes audio narration of the museum’s “Making A Home” exhibit — from Cereida Berrios Rodriguez, a District 87 bilingual teacher under the direction of museum digital collections curator Torii More. That audio tour is complemented with text in Spanish, as well as digital photos of artifacts from the exhibit, with captions in Spanish.
“Making A Home” is one of the nonprofit’s key permanent collections. It’s housed in a main floor gallery. The exhibit looks at the experiences of people who have called McLean County home for nearly 10 centuries. The stories range from 12th-century indigenous cultures, to European, Latin American and southeast Asian immigrants arriving in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Now museum patrons who want to learn about that — but who prefer a Spanish version — can listen to Berrios Rodriguez’ narration, and learn about each artifact by reading Spanish descriptions.
Evolution of the project
A few years ago, Emily McCusker became the museum’s youth and family education director. As she got settled, she noticed many school field trips included English Language Learners [ELL].
McCusker “saw that gap in educational resources for Spanish language speakers” and pushed to address that, said Harris. But the audio tour’s benefits reach beyond field trips. It’s also something any Spanish speaking visitor can use, as well as English speakers whose first language is Spanish, and also people studying Spanish who want practice, she said.
Building the project on web-based platform Tourient expands access even more because people can access the digital tour from anywhere. They don’t need to be physically in the museum, said Harris.
“We should be able to add more and more [to the same platform] as we continue to grow our language offerings at the museum,” said Harris. “Again, access is kind of the main driving force behind this.”
The majority of the project is funded through museum membership funds, and other donors. But the museum also earned a $4,000 Action Grant from Illinois Humanities, supported by the Illinois General Assembly.
The museum is a nonprofit organization that rents its building from the county. But it's not a public entity associated with Bloomington, the county or the state. So, Harris noted about 70% of its funding comes from sponsors and individual donors, with the remainder coming from grants and other sources.
Collaboration key to success
This $50,000 project was a year in the making, said Harris.
The museum brought together community experts focused on Spanish language, translation, education and communication.
That ad-hoc committee included county residents hailing from Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, as well as people who moved from other parts of the United States.
“We really put together an all-star committee,” she said.
Accessing tour is easy as a QR code
Entering the gallery, visitors find printed brochures in Spanish that include a map of the museum, and ways to access the Spanish audio tour. That’s done via a QR code, or by going to the app’s web address.
Opening the main page, users find an image of the museum’s exterior. From there, they can access a navigation bar for the 20 separate components labeled “exhibitions” that correlate to panels within the gallery.
“There are little numbers at every stop throughout the exhibit gallery that correlate to the numbers on the app,” said Harris.
“So if you don't want to go through every single part of the exhibit gallery, you can kind of pick and choose, like, ‘Oh, I'm really interested in this story panel,’ and kind of go at your own pace,” she said, while looking at a panel about Jesse Fell, who helped establish the Town of Normal.
Harris later walked to a panel about the family of longtime Bloomington resident Socorro Alvarez, who spent her career leading the Western Avenue Community Center before retiring a few years ago.
Harris demonstrated how the app shows photos and descriptions of artifacts on display. They include donated items the family brought from Mexico in the 1970s, such as a pink dress. Harris pointed to a sign sharing Socorro Alvarez’ collected oral history about arriving in Bloomington as a teenager.
“So in the app, you hear all this as well” in Spanish, said Harris.
Community members offer feedback
For several years, Miriam Padilla and her husband, Jesus Islas, have served as the lead volunteers for creating the community ofrenda — or altar — that’s a key part of the museum’s Day of the Dead observation in November.
This past weekend, the Bloomington couple and their adolescent daughters, Iliana Islas and Xareni Islas, spent the morning packing the ofrenda away for next year.
Padilla hasn’t listened to all 20 sections of the program yet. But she’s heard a few.
Her favorite so far is the panel about Alvarez, who is a family friend.
Padilla said she did hear a lot of excitement from people attending the Dia de los Muertos celebration after they tried out the new tour.
People were surprised to see the museum now had such a tool for letting them listen to descriptions of the exhibit.
“They say, ‘Oh, this is wonderful,'” said Padilla, who thinks the new app is one way for the Spanish speaking members of McLean County to better integrate into the community. Until now, they’ve been able to enjoy viewing the exhibit. But the Spanish component provides a chance to better understand more about the stories of the different people who have settled here, she said.
The history museum’s push for the program shows its dedication to serving its diverse population, added Jesus Islas, an engineer who moved with his family from Mexico a few years ago to work at the Rivian auto plant in Normal.
“I saw it like the museum making a big effort just to involve all the parts of the community — because the community is not just the American people who speak English,” he said.
Providing the interactive app in Spanish sends the message to immigrants: “The museum is also for you, and I’ll give you the tools and everything just to enjoy it like the normal English language people do,” he added.
Museum staff continue to collect feedback on the tour. Harris noted at the end of the audio tour, participants are asked to complete a survey.
Other digital history museum tours
While this project marks the museum’s first Spanish language digital tour, the Tourient app also is home to two other self-guided tours — but English-only right now.
Those are the Downtown Bloomington Architecture Tour, a walking tour with no audio, and the the Looking for Lincoln in Bloomington-Normal Tour that includes English narration.
In addition, the museum’s own website includes several other digital exhibits and virtual tours.
