The first week of my internship proved to be a crash course
in the major themes in public history. Once I had some of the major works in
the field under my belt, I turned my attention to interpretive planning. I
first had to digest the meaning of interpretive planning. What is an interpretive plan? What is its
purpose? How does one go about crafting an interpretive plan? Who goes about crafting it; is it a
one-man job or a collaborative team effort?
I turned first to the edited collection Interpreting Historic House Museums. The book has an excellent
chapter, appropriately titled “Interpretation Planning: Why and How,” which
provides a nice introduction to interpretive planning. The essay was useful
also because the scope of the plan covered was well suited to the goals of the
Public History Center. Of course, the Public History Center is not a “House
Museum,” per se, but its goals are more closely aligned to house museums than expansive,
well-funded museums. Another work proved a useful starting place. The
workmanlike Manual of Museum Exhibitions provided
a clear and to-the-point essay on interpretive planning. I found other
resources as well. Most helpful was the website for the Stenton House Museum, a
museum located just outside of Philadelphia. The Stenton House had thoughtfully
decided to post its interpretive plan to its website. Their plan was
straightforward and easily comprehensible, providing the perfect example to the
themes covered in the previous works. Lastly, for good measure, a quick Google
search for “museum interpretive plans” elicited a few prizes of its own. I was
able to find plans for museums in locations ranging from Alaska to Scotland. My
conclusion: the more examples you can piece together, the better.
With all of the assorted materials digested, I gained a
clearer understanding of an interpretive plan. Here it is in a nutshell: a
thorough and sophisticated institutional interpretive plan will provide your
museum with a clear and distinct identity and purpose. When done correctly,
both the museum staff and the viewing audience will have a clear sense of the
intended narratives of the museum. With this in mind, an interpretive plan seeks
to clarify a mere handful of important themes (not more, lest you want to
bewilder your audience and muddle your message!) of which the various exhibits
in the museum serve to reinforce. Moreover, an interpretive plan will help
clarify how each exhibit serves to strengthen the interpretive narratives woven
through the museum. In the process, a plan serves to articulate a museum’s
mission statement and clarify the museum’s role in the community. Not least of
all, a well-crafted interpretive plan will provide you with a ready-made “elevator
speech” to expound on the purposes and virtues of your site when asked “what is
your museum about?”
I therefore spent two full days of my second week tucked
away in the Public History Center. I was tasked with developing a preliminary
inventory report – a lengthy summary of the museum’s collections, exhibits,
educational materials, and supplementary tools for guests – with the intent of
surveying the strengths and weaknesses of the museum. This requisite stage is
needed for establishing which themes are most viable for the museum to direct
its focus and energy toward. As I quickly discovered, the museum does not
possess a single, tidy report of the museum’s inventory. So, with help from
Cyndi, Shirley, and Kelli, all helpful contributors to the museum, I scavenged
for any list or report that offered relevant information. All told, by the end
of week two, I had a (very) rough sketch of the museum’s holdings. My goal for
week three was to develop a project team, comprised of relevant staff and
scholarly consultants, to collaborate on the forthcoming interpretive plan.
