**Basic Principles of Interpretation**

**Amy Galperin -- Resources for Interpretation**

The National Association for Interpretation has a website, and if you go
to their website, and this is the opening section of the website,
you\'ll see that there\'s information about training, that there\'s
information for just the members, and if you go to that area for just
the members, there\'s a whole section about member forum where you can
ask questions and get answers to the questions, you can do \"job.\" And
if you look down here, you can see that the (inaudible) has actually put
on an announcement about a job. So that you can look at that as an aid
for getting professional people to apply for your site.

There\'s also a resource page for interpreters where ‑‑ this is
contractors that work in interpretation. Here\'s your job information.
There\'s universities and colleges that offer interpretive courses that
you can actually go and ask the university and colleges to help you with
interpretive projects. Or, look for students to hire.

There\'s also a whole section of a library. These are the introductory
books. These books basically are intro books to interpretation. You have
Tilden\'s book. You have a basic book about interpretation, how to do
interpretation. This is a wonderful little book about themes and how
important themes are in interpretation.

You also have a lot of how‑to books, and these are just some examples.
Ho to do labels. How to do waysides. How to do interpretive planning.
Interpretive writing. All these different types of how‑to books you can
find through the NAI website.

There\'s also philosophy books, philosophy books about interpretation.
This is a book on how to develop stories and tell stories. This is a
great book on the story of a tree done by one of the first interpreters,
Enos Mills, who used to work at Rocky Mountain National Park. In fact,
he helped develop Rocky Mountain National Park and get it established.

This is a book that\'s recently really impacted the whole field of
environmental education and interpretation and all land management
agencies. In this book, Richard Love has looked at all the research
about how kids need to be in the natural resources, how kids need the
woods and how it affects their behavior, it affects their ability to
learn, it affects their self‑esteem. Highly recommend you look at this
book. It\'s the background of the whole movement of nature and kids and
getting kids out into the woods, Take It Outside, et cetera.

There\'s lots of reference books. This is a reference book here about
multimedia and how multimedia studies that have been done ‑‑ it\'s a
bibliography on studies that have you been done on multimedia. This is
nature center directories here. But lots and lots of different reference
books.

And then NAI itself, if you join NAI, there\'s a journal that comes out
four times a year, has lots of research in it in interpretation. Some of
that research I\'ve shared with you today. Most field offices, if not
all field offices of BLM, should have a copy of the Proceedings for the
Annual Interpretive Workshops. I send out the Proceedings to all the
State Offices and they distribute them.

This is a how‑to magazine. Every other month that it comes out there\'s
a theme. It talks about how‑to for the different themes in
interpretation.

And this is a magazine that basically is interpretation, has lots of
interpretive stories it in, lots of things that you would like to share
with your family, your friends, and it helps explain what we do as
interpreters.

There\'s a couple books I want to really point out to you. This one here
is about visitor centers. It\'s actually about interpretive centers, but
it goes through the history of interpretive centers, what to think about
when you\'re designing one, what problems to avoid. Again, it\'s
available through NAI. It\'s also available through the University of
Wisconsin.

This is another book in that series from the University of Wisconsin,
which goes through waysides, how to design waysides, what makes a good
wayside, what makes a bad wayside, using Freeman Tilden\'s principles,
and then using good design.

And there are lots of books that are available such as how to manage
interpretive sites, how to manage interpretive staff, and we also have a
BLM site. This is under Mary Tisdale\'s Environmental Education and
Volunteer website, and you can see these are the winners in 2006 for the
Excellence in Interp Award, and on this website there\'s a linkage to
the Interpretive Toolbox, and we are working on ‑‑ right now all these
sections basically have samples, samples of interpretive strategies,
samples of interpretive contracts. They will eventually get more
detailed with information about how to do strategies, what should make a
good strategy. We\'re working on really making this toolbox a toolbox
that the field staff can go to to get information to help them get
started with interpretive products.

There\'s also a lot of online courses going on right now related to
interpretation. Stephen F. Foster has the Master of Science in
Interpretation that was developed in partnership with the Park Service,
and so most of their examples are from the Park Service, but you can
take this online course in interpretation and get a Master\'s of
Interpretation.

There\'s also a program at the University of Wisconsin, and I believe
Idaho is looking at coming up with courses.

And there\'s the certification program through NAI. The BLM has an
agreement with NAI and the Forest Service to really work at pushing this
certification program, supporting this ‑‑ our field staff in getting
certified or attending these courses. There are many different
certifications. This is the Certified Heritage Course. There\'s also the
Certified Trainer Course. There\'s the Certified Guide Course. And these
certification courses are a great way for getting the background in
interpretation that will help you develop interpretation if you choose
to do it at your own sites. And it also will help you better understand
interpretation.