ABSTRACT
In this final chapter the authors explore some of the key outcomes of the Touch and Object Handling' workshop series from which this volume originates. The 'Touch and the Value of Object Handling' end-of-project conference included the presentation of two final papers in the series, and two sets of four consecutively running discussion sessions. In order to understand how they have come to the discussion of touch and the value of object handling in museums, it is necessary to consider a history of sense hierarchies and aesthetic experience as related to museums. Before the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act, the notion that touch may offer different ways of knowing that could be equally valued to the knowledge that sight offers, or to consider that touch and the other senses might inform vision, was not widely discussed. The issue of cultural value of objects as an inhibitor in terms of access to touch remains something worth further investigation.
