Even now, after a lifetime of such experiences, the incidents still bother her.
“Making our collection accessible to the blind and visually impaired is a great idea that has no downsides,” says Kathi Lieb, education curator of the Spertus Museum of Judaica. “It’s also a nice way to work with senior citizens or other visually impaired people who are not completely blind.”
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“Those who can see may not think about it, but there are hundreds of things we use our eyes to depend on every day,” Caffarelli says. “If you walk into a hotel, you read directions to get to the clerk’s desk or to your room or to the vending machine; once you’re at the vending machine, you use your eyes to spot the Diet Coke or regular Coke. We help museums prepare exhibits; we help restaurants write their menus in braille or hotels provide directions in braille. We’re now working with the taxicabs of Chicago to have them put information like the driver’s name and phone number in braille. We’re part of the larger movement to make society more accessible for people with disabilities. They’re not going to hide us away like they used to.”
“The Elmhurst schools didn’t have resources for blind kids,” she says. “I went to the Bell School, which has special programs. I learned braille, and they taught me how to type when I was in the third grade. We’d get social studies with the regular kids. And then when the other kids were doing art, or whatever, we did typing.
Since then Spertus has opened much of its permanent collection to the blind, allowing them to feel ancient prayer shawls, Torahs, and a variety of archaeological artifacts.
Certainly there are no reports of damaged property from other museums that have worked with Horizons. “Quite the contrary,” says Lieb. “People who are used to using their hands or fingers are extraordinarily careful. They move slowly with their fingers because they’re taking time to decipher information.”
