The Kodiak Maritime Museum to use Guide by Cell's Audio Tour Service for "When Crab was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fisher, 1950-1982"

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, July 19, 2012

Guide by Cell Inc., the leading mobile solution provider for cultural institutions and museums, has been chosen as the official cell phone provider of the Kodiak Maritime Museum in Alaska for their exhibit, "When Crab was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery, 1950-1982." Guide by Cell provides mobile solutions that range from audio tours and mobile websites to mobile donations and more.

Kodiak Maritime Museum's exhibit features 24 large-format photographic portraits of people who lived through the Kodiak King Crab fishing boom, which peaked in the mid-1960s. The accompanying cell phone tour allows visitors to hear the voices of the people in the portraits- fishermen, bartenders, cannery workers, and ordinary townspeople who lived through a great, though short-lived, fishing boom. Visitors dial (206) 686 - 8562 and hit prompts corresponding to the numbered portraits to hear the three minute stories, which were excerpted from longer oral histories recorded by the museum and originally presented on a local radio station.

"While purchasing [portable audio devices] was beyond the means of the museum, recent advances in cell phone technology and cell phone audio tours made such equipment unnecessary," said KMM's Executive Director Toby Sullivan. "Using Guide by Cell's mobile audio tour turned out to be a very elegant, affordable solution to our interpretive design problem of presenting both the oral histories and the photographs of the people who recorded those oral histories in the same space. The faces and the voices, the past and the present, combine to immerse the visitor in the very personal experiences of these people who experienced the King Crab fishery. The effect of seeing their faces and hearing their voices at the same time is quite powerful."

Guide by Cell's audio tour service also allows visitors to leave voicemail comments. The mobile audio tour is free and does not require the rental of audio equipment. The exhibit is now on tour at a museum in Wasilla, Alaska, and will visit other museums around the state over the next year.

Guide by Cell also offers additional mobile technology solutions such as its new "Mobile Docent" service that combines QR Codes, mobile website and text messaging in one integrated package. For more information, please visit http://www.guidebycell.com

The Kodiak Maritime Museum:
Kodiak Maritime Museum is the only organization in the U.S. solely dedicated to preserving Alaska's maritime heritage. KMM is a nonprofit organization that began its voyage in 1996 to educate the public about Alaska's commercial fishing industry and maritime heritage and to preserve that history for posterity. For more information, please visit http://www.kodiakmaritimemuseum.org.

About Guide by Cell:
Launched in 2004, Guide by Cell is a San Francisco based mobile technology company, providing unique, affordable, and effective mobile technology solutions to thousands of clients including cultural institutions and non-profit organizations. Guide by Cell's main platforms include cell phone audio tours, text messaging, mobile websites and apps, and mobile fundraising. Sister companies include mobile fundraising focused Give by Cell, political campaign solutions provider Win by Cell, and mobile training and learning company Train by Cell. For more information, visit http://www.guidebycell.com.