Times are changing at historic house museums and no one is more aware of this than the fourteen contributors to Interpreting Historic House Museums. These respected museum professionals consider the history of house museums and the need to look at familiar issues from new perspectives and using new methods. If your site isn't using a comprehensive interpretive plan, how can you create one? While doing so, how do you address contemporary issues like race and gender? Don't forget the physical either does your property need a landscape plan as well as a furnishings plan? And, when your visitors arrive to see all your hard work, how accessible is your property? If the answer is not very, what can and should you be doing to address that? Once inside, how good are your tours and guides, and does your furnishings plan allow visitors to maximize their experiences in areas without guides? Interpreting Historic House Museums captures the big picture and the important details. Its discussion of contemporary issues and successful programs, its practical guidelines and information, up-to-date references, and lively illustrations will make it useful and relevant for both students and practicing professionals."

Creating tours that are interesting and educational for visitors (and guides!) is a challenge every historic site faces. Great Tours! helps you focus clearly on the material culture and significance of your site and then shows you how to use that focus to train and energize your guides. You will be able to move your tours to a fresh new level that is engaging and educational for visitors of all ages and abilities. Readings and workshop activities frame the process throughout and allow you to develop what is most appropriate for your site, while working to strike a realistic balance between ideals and every day reality. Great Tours! offers a unique combination of theoretical guidance and practical activities, supplemented by reproducible forms and a bibliography and index, that make it an invaluable resource for anyone involved with planning tours and training guides. Published in cooperation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Visit their web page.