Accessible digital culture

Jodi Awards being presented on stage by television producer and screenwriter Phil Redmond
Jodi Awards being presented on stage at Museum of Liverpool by television producer and screenwriter Phil Redmond

The Jodi Mattes Trust

The Jodi Mattes Trust promotes barrier-free access to cultural collections for disabled people. Museums, galleries, archives, libraries and heritage sites use technology ever more to serve their audiences. The Trust fosters the cultural equality of disabled people by celebrating best practice through the Jodi Awards; developing guidance for museums, libraries and archives; challenging cultural organisations to do more for the cultural rights of disabled people.

The Jodi Awards

The Awards recognise outstanding use of technology to widen access to information, learning, collections and creativity for disabled people in museums, libraries, archives and heritage. The Awards are given in memory of Jodi Mattes, a tireless champion of equal access to culture for disabled people.

The 2017 Awards took place on 29th June at the Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester, in conjunction with the University of Leicester.

Baroness Campbell on the Jodi Awards

Who can apply?

Reading about this year’s winners made you want to apply? You can if you are in the category of museums, libraries, archives, heritage and disability organisations, of all sizes and from all countries, that have worked on accessible digital culture initiatives. Projects can be low or hi-tech and for small or large audiences. Nominations for this year’s awards are now closed, but see our ‘Apply’ page for information on how to apply for the next round of awards in 2019.

Award Criteria

Judges will be looking for projects, services or facilities which demonstrate exemplary qualities, real effort and achievement, and have the power to inspire change. The Judges will assess the following dimensions of your project:

  • Organisational commitment to disability equality
  • Involvement of disabled people in the planning, designing, creating and testing of products or services
  • Adherence to inclusive design principles
  • Outcomes, including the quality of finished products or services, key benefits and user endorsements
  • Level of in-built sustainability and/or growth
  • Inspirational value and potential impact

Jodi Awards: 2017 winning project

Signly @ The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

Explaining Signly
‘Signly’ award acceptance

Sign language is the preferred language for many deaf people, and the Signly app at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, delivers smart signed content directly to the user’s device. Open the app and point at a Signly SIgnpost to play the relevant video.  Signed content appears as if the visitor had brought their own interpreter along in their pocket.

Read more about Signly

2017 Commended projects

National Museums Liverpool

House of Memories representatigves accepting their commendation
House of Memories explained

House of Memories is an innovative dementia awareness training programme developed by National Museums Liverpool (NML). More than 10,000 health and social and family carers have accessed the training. My House of Memories app is a digital resource developed to share tools and techniques from the training, based on the power of objects to elicit deeply held memories.

Read more about the House of Memories

Manchester Museum

Manchester Museum representative receiving a commendation
Manchester Museum receiving a commendation

Improving access to museums collections for blind and visually impaired people through the use of new 3D technology. Two new 3D digital interactive experiences developed in the UK, Digital Touch Replicas and Gallezeum® were evaluated by Visually Impaired working groups in Austria, Germany and the UK; they have been found to offer new ways of accessing museum collections and encouraging participation in museums.

Read more about Digital Touch Replicas and Gallezeum®