1. SPEECH TO TEXT TRANSCRIPTION IN MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES
Tabitha Allum, Chief Executive, STAGETEXT
2. About STAGETEXT Founded in 2000 following trip to London by
some deaf New Yorkers where they brought captioning with them 5 of
our 9 Trustees and 2 of our 6 staff members are deaf, deafened or
hard of hearing Receives regular funding from ACE, project funding
from trusts and foundations but also charge direct costs to venues
Started in theatre, now expanding to offering speechto-text in
museums, galleries and literary events
3. What is speech-to-text for talks? Palantypist or
stenographer is used to transcribe what is being said using
phonetic keyboard Text is displayed at the front of the auditorium
for talks and on handheld displays for tours
4. Who is captioning for? There are 10 million people in the UK
with varying degrees of deafness (by 2031, its estimated to rise to
14.5 million) More than 70% of over 70 year-olds and 40% of over 50
year-olds have some form of hearing loss At least four million
people who don't have hearing aids would benefit from using them On
average it takes ten years for people to address their hearing loss
Over 99% of people with hearing loss do not know British Sign
Language Statistics: Action on Hearing Loss
5. How does captioning help?
6. Static talks Palantypist or stenographer (STTR) is present
or remote Text is either displayed on separate screens or
integrated with main presentation using multimedia scaler
7. Tours using handheld devices Audio taken from tour guide
Audio sent to remote STTR Transcription sent to a webpage Patrons
read the text on a wifi-enabled tablet as they walk around the
exhibits
8. Results from feedback card exercise Those patrons who
declare to be using the text and those who are the incidental
patrons who find it useful Name of Venue Total number of people
attending % of audience who booked to use the text % of total
audience which found text useful at the end National Gallery (Talk)
108 19% 73% Wellcome Collection (Talk) 90 18% 62%
9. Beyond access? Not just deaf, deafened and hard of hearing
people who find it useful The conference was my first experience of
speech-to-text and I thought it added greatly to the speakers
delivery and our comprehension of their talks... Hearing but also
seeing the words helped me focus and concentrate all the more on
the presentations. The impact of speech-to-text on engagement and
deepening understanding needs to be investigated
10. What we need from speakers Glossary of key words that the
speaker will use, for example: o Titles of works, proper nouns,
places o Unusual vocabulary that the speech-to-text reporter will
not have in their dictionary: eg Theocentric, Anthropocentric,
Humanism, Worpswede, Grz-sur-Loing o Any quotes or excerpts from
books, films or writers o If not prepared in advance, words may
appear phonetically: Canaletto = can let toe Euripides = youre rip
deeds o Speakers PowerPoint presentations, if possible
11. Moving the service on Started providing the service in
London Now looking to expand into other major cities, like
Liverpool Growing the audience of deaf, deafened and hard of
hearing patrons Investigating impact on engagement among the
incidental users making a better case Would you like to join
us.?
12. Thank you for listening www.stagetext.org @STAGETEXT
[email protected]