EVERYTHING THE GETTY OFFERS, IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Out with the overly creased, easily lost museum guide maps of old. Welcome to the next generation of self-guided tours.

Beginning today, visitors to the Getty Center can check out the new GettyGuide, a handheld multimedia system that looks a bit like an iPod or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), designed to enhance a gallery-goer's visit. The Getty is one of the first museums in the country to feature the new technology for visitors.

The handheld device, which hangs from a strap around a user's neck and requires headphones, is replete with information about the Getty Center's visiting and permanent exhibitions. It can be checked out free of charge at the central information desk by leaving a driver's license or photo identification.

Interested in van Gogh's painting ``Irises''? The GettyGuide's positioning system will lead you to it, and audio commentary will give you historical background. Want a self-guided audio tour of the newly opened exhibition ``Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile''? With a push of a button, the handheld becomes your docent. Garden tours are available as well, although that phase of the GettyGuide is not complete.

Care to know what lectures or events are happening on the day of your visit? Or do you simply want to know the nearest place you can get coffee or find a restroom? The GettyGuide can help with those matters as well.

``We're putting at your fingertips stuff you're likely to go to the information desk to ask,'' says Christina Olsen, the Getty Center's head of interactive programming. ``It's not technology for technology's sake. This is about the collection.''

Unlike previous self-guided tours, the GettyGuide - in development since 2001 - combines into a single device three elements that were traditionally handled separately: audio commentary, an interactive touch- screen function and online access.

``We had one thing for each of those and they didn't talk to each other very well,'' says Kenneth Hama, executive director of digital policy and initiatives. ``I think before, we looked from the point of view of how we produced them rather than more strictly from the point of view of how visitors used them.''

Although the GettyGuide has a high-resolution screen to display miniature depictions of the various art works, the device's audio commentary is designed to be particularly strong, says Olsen. Spanish-language commentary is available at several stops and visitors can conduct guided audio tours in several languages.

To access the information most successfully, the GettyGuide requires a visitor to walk up to an individual work of art and listen to the device rather than read the information.

Once they've watched the on-screen demonstration, users can determine how much of the GettyGuide's resources they will end up sampling.

``We'll put it to them, 'Look, you can use this in a really passive way, and not do very much at all,' '' says Olsen. ``The screen will update every time you walk into a gallery and will change again when you walk out. If you want to do more, you can bookmark or listen to extensive audio tours. We're not expecting everybody is going to do that, and we didn't design it thinking everybody would.''

If you are doing research and only want to visit certain artworks or are looking to make efficient use of your visit time, an e-mail message (or bookmark) sent to a pre-established Getty Musuem account can be downloaded into the device when you arrive at the museum, so that you can predesign your own tour. Visitors are advised to check out www.getty.edu before visiting the museum to set up an account, which they can then access via a GettyGuide at any subsequent visit.

According to Olsen, easy-to-use interactive handheld devices are starting to sprout up at museums across the country - often in pilot programs. The Smithsonian in Washington, Museum of Modern Art in New York and Peabody Essex Museum in Boston are all in early stages of developing interactive guides. Further along is the Experience Music Project Live in Seattle, which also gives visitors access to a portable handheld device to help guide them around.

``But that's very audio-focused because it's a music museum,'' says Olsen. ``I think the Getty is really the first art museum to do it and the first to do it on this scale with wireless networking and with locationing all feeding data from a server as opposed to having a prepackaged tour that lives on the device.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

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The GettyGuide provides audio commentary, touch-screen features and Internet access for museum-goers.