Fulfilling the promise of our Story of the Book campaign, the ABM is delighted to announce that our Audio Tour is a reality! While Sheltering-in-Place this Spring, using our Docent Tour as the starting point, we’ve been researching, writing, editing, and recording, to create an audio tour that we are proud to offer to our visitors. We—and our beta testers—believe we’ve done it. It’s up to you to visit and tell us what you think.

The Audio Tour walks our guests through the earliest days of the book and the craft of hand-binding in the 16th century; it explores colonial American binding, the emergence of mass book production in the Industrial Revolution, and finally stationery binding. In addition to our new tour, we’ve added more materials to the floor. Dive as deep as you like, and linger over the exhibits that intrigue you. 

How does it work? Use your smartphone and earbuds to access the tour online, moving through each section at your own pace. Forgot to bring your earbuds, or don’t have a smartphone? No worries: the museum has disposable earbuds available, and a limited number of loaner tablets from which you can access the tour.

The Audio Tour will make it possible for visitors to experience the museum while observing social distancing: no group, just you and the materials, machines, and history of bookbinding. Have a question? Don’t worry; there will always be someone available to ask.

We cannot thank the members and donors who donated to the Story of the Book enough: without your help we could not have done it! We look forward to greeting you for the ABM Audio Tour!