Museum Dedicated To Cell Phones Opens

A Florida museum is using technology to enhance the enjoyment of its exhibits.

You may find some visitors to the Norton Museum have cell phones pressed to their ears, but they're not breaking any rules.

In fact, museum staff is encouraging them to dial.

"In this day and age, almost everyone has a cell phone and so to walk into a museum and see that all you have to do is dial a number and punch in a code and you can hear the artist talking about his work, I think is quite wonderful."

For the first time, the Norton is offering cell phone tours for its exhibition "William Wegman: Funny-Strange" which features more than 200 works.

"We're looking at the exhibits and noticed you could dial up a cell phone and we decided to try it."

All people have to do is dial the phone number, followed by the corresponding item number next to the artwork.

"This one with Batty, though I had to laugh, I've never seen a dog of mine address this familiar situation of mine in such an odd and personal way."

"You're listening to him talk about his artwork and there can't be anything better than that, it really helps with the appreciation of the art, you get an idea of what the artist was thinking and its a lot of fun."

Art teacher Martha Capewell regularly visits the museum.

While the tour does use up some of her cell phone minutes, she believes it's much more user friendly.

"It sure is handy, its easier than renting a box and having the earphones and being glued, you can just walk around, dial it up whenever you want."

Museum staff say because of the success of the cell phone tour for this exhibit they are now looking into adding cell phone tours to future exhibits.