Audio Guide Tours Now Available At Peabody Museum

NEW HAVEN — Visitors to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History can now have a more enriched experience as they tour the museum thanks to the efforts and support of two of the museum’s most dedicated friends. On April 12 the Peabody introduced audio guides that enable visitors to conduct self-guided audio walking tours of the museum’s permanent exhibits.

Free of charge, the audio guides will enable visitors to key in 36 different stops, or locations, to hear stories and information about many of the museum’s prized exhibits and specimens. The Peabody guide offers 70 minutes of insightful audio commentary developed by museum curators and educators.

The audio tours were produced by Acoustiguide, the producer of guides worldwide including those at the New York Botanical Gardens, the Frick, and the American Museum of Natural History. Visitors can use an Acoustiguide wand available at the Admissions Desk, dial up the tour and listen to it on personal cell phone, or download the tour to their personal MP3 players from the museum’s website. Museum staff will provide instructions for the different uses and a map with stops. By keying in stops, visitors can listen to commentary at their own pace and in any order they choose.

Fun and interesting facts to be learned include why the Peabody held a decapitation ceremony for its enormous Apatosaurus skeleton in the 1970s, the types of plant remains that were discovered in the stomach of a mummified mastodon, how Alaskan Brown bears survive in their harsh tundra habitat, and the secrets of Egyptian mummification.

The audio tour launch fulfills a long held wish and follows several years of research and determination by Peabody volunteer Dolores M. “Dody” Gall. Having traveled to museums throughout the world, Dody believed that the important ones always have an audio guide for their visitors.

“You come to expect that a great museum will have an audio guide, and the Peabody is a great museum,” she said, adding, “The biggest advantage of an audio guide is that you are looking at the specimens, rather than spending time reading labels. Based on museum experience with my own granddaughters, young people are instantly engaged by the push-the-number audio wands as they walk through a museum, and you know that they are getting the most knowledgeable information.”

Several years ago Dody spent much of her summer on a campstool reading labels and looking at Peabody’s displays. After researching costs and armed with a sample script and the backing of the Peabody Associates Council, a volunteer group of which she is a member, she proposed the idea to Peabody Director Michael J. Donoghue.

Mr Donoghue reportedly loved the idea but the significant cost of the program had to be addressed. When longtime friend of the Peabody, Lucille Alderman, heard about the proposal, she was thrilled at the prospect of an enhanced visitor experience at one of her favorite institutions and volunteered to fund the project in memory of her late husband Arnold J. Alderman. Lucille and Arnold Alderman provided the support for the Hall of Native American Cultures at the Peabody and she says it was through her late husband’s love of the Peabody and natural history that she became a follower herself.

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is at 170 Whitney Avenue in New Haven, and is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sundays from noon to 5. Admission to exhibits and most programs (unless noted) is free with admission of $7 adults, $6 seniors, and $5 children age 3-18.

Admission is free for museum members, Yale ID holders, and children under age 3. On Thursdays from 2 to 5 pm admission is also free and open to all.

Visit www.peabody.yale.edu or call the Infotape at 203-432-5050 for additional information.