The exhibition space itself consisted of four display cabinets, with a number of items framed on the wall, as this installation shot shows. [Fig. 3]

Whilst I very much wanted touch to be a key part of the exhibition, the objects had to be behind glass, due to both security and conservation considerations.

The artifacts were largely rare books that had been produced using experimental printing technologies, and although ostensibly they were intended for handling, the early methods for embossing letters had made the paper brittle. As such, the books have been particularly prone to damage, and their condition showed signs of wear and tear over the years: the surface of pages crumbling, the threads and bindings coming loose, in places the embossed lettering worn down. How then to present these objects to visitors who were partially-sighted or blind and to whom visual interpretation of objects and information material might be less useful than other modes; and how to impress a sense of their tactile qualities to all visitors?

With the available budget I produced, with RNIB image services, relief replicas of several of the alphabets and books for handling within the exhibition. These were not exact replicas: the fonts were enlarged for tactile legibility (giving some sense of the challenges Victorian finger readers might have faced grappling with

some raised scripts in their original format). Braille notes were also added to aid interpretation. For example, if an embossed alphabet code in the original Victorian book had been accompanied with a Roman letter character as a key, we also supplemented that with a Braille character. The booklet also featured full object descriptions of those select replica items. Whilst all the information labels were reproduced in a Braille handbook, budget constraints meant that we could not afford to reproduce object descriptions for all items in Braille, nor produce audio guides. Instead, we uploaded full object descriptions and caption information onto the exhibition website as both a word document; and on the individual pages which were created for each object, accompanied also by a photograph. For low vision users, we also made available within the exhibition space enlarged copies of photographic reproductions of each object, as well as magnifiers.

Whilst an audio guide wasn’t available, I ran a series of talks with groups of blind and low-vision visitors throughout the duration of the exhibition. If this programming aspect sprang from a technological lack, it was also for me one of the most exciting and dynamic legacies of the show, as each visitor brought various and diverse interests, experiences and insights to the historical material. I was able to spend time describing objects and images of particular interest to individual visitors and together, in response to prompts and queries, visitors and I would frequently find new details or meanings that – despite spending many years working on this material – I hadn’t noticed before. With smaller groups, there was also opportunity to handle some of the more robust artifacts from RNIB collections; a copy of a Bible in an arbitrary script called Frere, and Armitage’s writing frame. Getting a sense of the size and shape of the books, the density and feel of paper, and some of the conventions used for finger reading (such as the hook that Frere introduced at the end of a line to guide readers to the line below, which was then read in reverse in a snake-like motion), helped to bring the material alive for visitors, and opened up new paths of questioning.

Exploring Victorian tactile books highlights the diverse ways in which blind and partially-sighted people engaged with literary material in this period, and impresses the multisensory nature of all acts of reading. Yet this history also embodies sets of prejudices, power dynamics and competing interests which hindered the community it was supposed to serve from easily accessing the written word. Following the exhibition, I’ve run several workshops on this heritage at conferences and humanities festivals. These are events I’ve particularly valued as they allow opportunity for more ‘hands-on’ engagement with the material. For example, being able to compare the scale of Alston type – one of the most popular early formats – as it was produced, alongside the replicas we had made – encouraged discussion around the difficulties Victorian finger readers may have faced, and the interests and agendas that may have motivated inventors. It’s a history which encourages us to think and talk about the ways in which our own rapidly shifting media age might also re-inscribe barriers to access.