Interpreting Heritage: A Guide to Planning and Practice (Routledge Guides to Practice in Museums, Galleries and Heritage)

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Successful participation generally involves people or communities as equal partners, involved throughout the project and paid for their time. Kylie Christian is the current President of Interpretation Australia, Australia's peak body for the profession of heritage interpretation.

For interpretation planners, the theoretical interpretive philosophy is often as stimulating as the practical work of writing captions and leading guided tours, but this isn’t the place to dwell on that. Many fantastic interpretation projects are devised on a shoestring, while the sky can be the limit for cutting-edge digital interpretation. This offers another way to provide a responsive, tailored experience via direct contact with audiences.Drawing upon the author's professional experiences of working within, and for, the heritage sector, Interpreting Heritage provides advice and suggestions that will be essential for practitioners working in museums, art galleries, libraries, archives, outdoor sites, science centres, castles, stately homes and other heritage venues around the world. Staff and volunteers can be trained to give presentations that are targeted at hearing or visually impaired visitors. And do we become more mindful if we taste grandmother’s favourite dish or try an old recipe shared with us by the migrants next door? How apt that interpreters, equipped with the skillset for making things make sense – for boiling down the message, for finding the clarity out of the confusion – seemingly find it difficult to agree on a simple turn of phrase to define the very thing that we do on a daily basis. It needs to relate and connect the natural and cultural worlds to a person’s emotions and experiences.

You can still use technical terms or unusual words, but you need to explain their meaning and give them context. You must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to the way you deliver your services so that disabled people can use them. Remember to review your interpretation plan regularly to ensure your approach works for your target audiences. Your interpretation should cover a range of learning styles and it should also be tested for suitability with a range of different audiences. In addition, it is often treated separately from other responses such as Connecting with Country, destination marketing or public art installations, creating a disconnect or segmented result.At Shire Hall, Dorset, visitors go on a journey through a series of galleries and historical spaces, including cells, docks and a historic courtroom. It’s possible to convey relatively complex subjects within a limited number of words, although it might take time, practice and feedback to get the words right. Devise an interpretation plan that is aligned to your organisation’s vision and objectives with developed sub-themes and key messages.