Vancouver cont.

Here are some of the sessions I went to:

Finding Stuff
New Ways To Search, Navigate And Use Multimedia Museum Collections over the Web Matthew Addis, IT Innovation Centre, Kirk Martinez, Paul Lewis, University of Southampton, James Stevenson, Victoria & Albert Museum, United Kingdom, and Fabrizio Giorgini, Giunti Interactive Labs, Italy
Search Engines and On-line Museum Access on the Web
Joanthan Bowen,Silvia Filippini Fantoni, Université Paris I-Sorbonne, ItalyTeresa Numerico, London South Bank University, United Kingdom

Pre + Post Visit
Cultural Visit Memory: The Visite+ System Personalization and Cultural Visit Tracking Site Roland Topalian

Accessibility
The Accessibility Of Museum Web Sites: Results From An English Audit And International Comparisons
Neil King, Helen Petrie, Marcus Weisen, United Kingdom
Providing Deaf and Hard-Of-Hearing Visitors With On-Demand, Independent Access To Museum Information and Interpretation Through Handheld Computers
Nancy Proctor, United Kingdom

Let's go mobile! Design issues in multichannel "accessible" applications for cultural heritage
Sebastiano Colazzo, Franca Garzotto, Paolo Paolini, Italy

Attentive Interfaces
Attentive interfaces for museum/gallery content Slavko Milekic, USA

The demonstrations were very interesting but one that really interest me because it will impact how multi media can be made accessible is Peter Seitel’s ( Smithsonian) Synchrotext: A Tool for Curating and Publishing Media Content

Vancouver folks are very friendly. Dennis and Fenella Sung came to pick me up at the airport and took me to the YWCA where I stayed one night. They took me to an Asian restaurant for dinner where I had my favourite roti canai and hainanese chicken rice. (a la Hong Kong style I suppose. The roti canai was like pâte feuilletée – like a croissant than the roti canai that I am used to. Dennis and I were at University of Kent, Canterbury and we have not seen each other for nearly 25 years. The Sungs moved to Canada from Hong Kong like so many others about 15 years ago. They have their own translation business now. It was so good to see them and catch up with news. They also gave up their Sunday to show Jonathan and me around. Considering that Vancouver city was blocked up by their ‘Sun run’ (some kind of marathon) – that was heroic of them to come and pick us up. They drove us round and we went to the North Shore, Stanley Park, Granville Island market and Lonsdale Quay market. Jonathan and I had some of the biggest oysters ever! And he had been having oysters in San Francisco just before arriving in Vancouver. I bought a hat – curiously enough, it was a sort of French beret. And then we went to a nice non touristy Chinese restaurant for dinner. Apparently the place to eat Chinese food in Vancouver is Richmond but we never made it that far.

Choosing hat with Fenella

Vancouver bay with Dennis and Fenella Sung

After the first night at the YWCA, I went to stay with Lawrence who had kindly offered me his sofa bed. It was really kind of him because the timing was not very convenient for him – his aunt had just passed away. But he got his friends to drive me around – I met Kia and Indie offered me a lift back to the airport. Considering she had to pick me up at 7 am for the morning flight- it was really nice of her. Lawrence is the manager of a condominium in Granville Island – with a really nice view of the marina.

The last Monday, I met up with Jonathan and we went to the Vancouver Art Gallery. After saying goodbye to some folks and shopping at Virgin megastore, we didn’t really have much time. Access is not very good at that Art Gallery for wheelchair users. You need staff to work the lifts – it was a bit cumbersome because the facilities were not all on the same floor. I was surprised- I did not expect that of a North American museum. We had lunch at the restaurant there. In the afternoon, I said goodbye to Jonathan. I was shown Gastown, an older part of Vancouver, which is very pleasant.

It took me nearly 24 hours from door to door to get home. I was glad to get home.