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January 14, 2008
Get mappin'
I went to the excellent Maps exhibit at the Field Museum today. As usual with such exhibits, I have one major gripe: get rid of the freaking audio tour guides!
It is a staple of every museum exhibit that you trade $5 in exchange for a tape recorder with a narrated audio tour of the exhibit. Sure, they are informative and give lots of background information that tourless schmucks like myself can't know, but they have one major drawback. They create an army of museum zombies.
They are always there: people who zone out, stare at the artifact in question, and become completely immobile, blocking all others. Combined with the incredible overcrowding such exhibits usually attract, it is nigh impossible to see anything because there is a wall of zombies. Sometimes, they will all get their tape recorders in sync, and move between walls as one. Woe be to anyone who gets in their way: listening to the dulcet tones of the B-list narrator, they don't even watch where they are going. A bump, followed by not even an apology, and they are on their way.
This is unacceptable. Please, get rid of the audio tours. It will make exhibits so much easier to attend.
entry no. 1057
Posted at January 14, 2008 12:00 AM