Speaking of art museums, the New York Times has a story today about museums that offer audio tours for guests via iPods and cellphones...

With more than 200 million cellphones in use on the planet, museum guide companies like Antenna Audio are creating new ways for museum visitors to access information at a point of interest. In a museum, cellphone content is generally accessed with a telephone number posted at a specific artwork. Visitors can access information about it by tapping in a code, like *278 (ART), on the keypad.

Then there is the iPod. Apple has sold 90 million iPod media players since their introduction in 2001, said Greg Joswiak, vice president for product marketing at iPod. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others, offers a number of online “artcast” tours that iPod users can download before going to the museum. The museum also provides visitors with iPods preloaded with digital tours.

This idea was mentioned by Megan Fox of Simmons College last March at the 2006 Computers in Libraries conference. Shortly thereafter, one of UNLV's legal writing professors, Jean Whitney, created an MP3 audio tour of our library for her students about a year ago. The sight of students wandering our collection while wearing ear buds was very cool indeed.

[New York Times] IPods and Cellphones Join the Audio Tour