APH Impact and Outreach

For the Impact and Outreach team Veronica Palensky is sharing her what she loves about museums, her role at APH and what she's most excited about The Dot Experience-

"I was very lucky to be exposed to a lot of museums from a young age. My love for museums started when I first visited the Exploreum Science Center in Mobile, Alabama. I remember being mesmerized by the exhibits and all the different hands-on components as a child, and I was able to learn so much through interaction. My love of museums has continued into adulthood, and I’ve been fortunate to visit some amazing museums, my favorites include The Joslyn in Omaha, Nebraska, the Mozart Museum in Vienna, Austria, and the Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain.   

In my role as Metadata and Information Services Librarian in the READS Department (Research, Evaluation, and Digital Information Services) at APH, my love of museums and history has continued to grow. In the APH Library, I get to work directly with the M.C. Migel Memorial Collection, the largest non-medical collection of materials related to blindness and low vision, and the Blind Musicians Collection, the only collection that solely focuses on preserving the contributions blind and low vision musicians have made to music regardless of genre or renown.  

I am very excited for the Dot Experience, since it will combine some of my favorite things, interactive learning, history, culture, and accessibility! I know how formative my early exposure of hands-on learning at museums was as a child and know that the Dot Experience’s commitment to creating the first fully accessible museum will bring that experience to so many more people. Additionally, I’m fascinated by the history of blindness, and am excited to see that history represented by the Dot Experience through the stories and voices of many blind and low vision individuals. The Dot Experience will be a one-of-a-kind experience and will serve as a model of accessibility for other cultural institutions for many years to come!"