Talk:Heritage interpretation

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I don't think we should be including histories of organizations that support interpretation here. If we included one (e.g NAI or IC), then we should include all professional support organizations worldwide (Scotland, Australia, etc. etc.) The article would then become more a collection of histories rather than a description and perhaps a dissertation about the communication process called heritage interpretation. BrianC 06:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added an Interpret Scotland page with an internal link to this Heritage Interpretation page. I suppose other organisations can do the same if they make sure they include the relevant references for notability? Kitreid 09:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blue Plaque

What in THE HECK is interpretive about these things? What emotional connection with the reource is elicited from a disk with 5-6 facts on it? A sigh? Yes. Useful? Probably. Concise? Certainly. Interpretive? Not in the least.Shoreranger 02:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess it depends on how we each define interpretation. I, like yourself, prefer more information right away so that I do get that true connection to the resource because I want lots information at the time I read the sign. I'll gladly spend 10 or 15 min. standing there and reading. Others may prefer a short sign, get the drift of the message and then if it's interesting enough for them, maybe go into a visitor centre, museum or library to dig up more info. Maybe just getting an idea of what the resource is all about is all that some people want or need. To me this would still be defined as interpretation. Granted, there is little context to the blue plaques, which is definitely a shortcoming.--BC 18:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to see it as more information than interpretation, but at the same time, I personally try to take as wide a view of interpretation as possible. But imho the image isn't the best for illustrating what interpretation is. Perhaps we need to get some more in? Kitreid 12:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If you visit old-fashioned galleries with outstanding artefacts (e. g. at the British Museum), you will sometimes find original objects touching you without any label. The well-crafted marble toe of a Greek statue for example – if it is as big as a shoe box. First you can’t understand, what it is – then you realize and imagine, how big the whole thing might have been. Provoke, relate and reveal happens within a few seconds. It depends on the circumstances, how much interpretation is needed. From this point of view, and if our profession is to help people to translate the language of the phenomena (rather than translating it for them), one single word at the right moment might be interpretation as well.

But the blue plaques are in the majority of cases no examples for few words with great effects. I have several images of blue plaques in my collection. One says: English Heritage / Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) / Philosopher and / campaigner for Peace / lived here / in flat No.34 / 1911-1916 and another English Heritage / Vera Brittain / 1893-1970 / Winifred Holtby / 1898-1935 / Writers and Reformers / lived here

“So what?”, Sam Ham would say. Any tombstone is more interpretive. The blue plaque is obviously meant to inform well-educated people in a very basic way, and it has at the best accidentally to do with interpretation. In our case, visitors might hopefully know the meaning of the sinking armada, and maybe the place, were the barn is situated, touches them somehow (if the plaque itself tempts them to stop at all). But I wouldn’t risk to ask passers-by for Bertrand Russell or Vera Brittain. They will neither before nor afterwards have a relationship to the site.

To avoid the assumption, blue plaques represent interpretation, I would absolutely agree in replacing the image by one that is showing the user at first glance, what interp is meant to be. Alas, the examples I could deliver are in German only, and my images from the US, the UK or Canada are derivates that won’t be accepted by Wikipedia for license reasons. - Who can help? --Thorsten Ludwig (talk) 18:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

First-person interpretation is a subset of heritage interpretation. Therefore I feel a merge would be appropriate.BC 17:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ditto Thematic interpretation. BC 22:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't object as long as we merge the content in rather than just delete it and make a redirect. Kevlar67 02:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, merging the content. This will mean a bit of reorganizing but I believe that all information contained in the two articles will be appropriate to the HI article.BC 05:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Would certainly make sense but perhaps requires a fair amount of new content on this page aswell Kitreid 12:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I would argue strongly against reorganizing thematic interpretation as a subset of heritage interpretation. I would be more inclined to agree to the reverse (i.e., heritage interpretation as a subset of thematic interpretation). Thematic interpretation would make sense as a subset of the more general "interpretation" since it is an approach to interpretation that is based on a particular body of cognitive and social psychology. But thematic interpretation is applied around the world to MANY subject areas. Yes, natural and cultural heritage are among them (hence the generic "heritage interpretation"). But a thematic approach is also used to interpret science, wine, beer, energy production, manufacturing, food, art, music, and a host of others topics that would not normally be considered "heritage interpretation" per se. Another option would be to leave the organization as it currently is and just hot link relevant keywords. I prefer this latter option. Sham2 (talk) 00:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Sham2. Thematic interpretation should NOT be considered a subset of heritage interpretation. Furthermore, when considering Tilden and his principles of interpretation and more contemporary authors on the subject, clearly this is a unique form of interpretation and as Sham2 states should be considered a subset of the more general "interpretation".(1sylvan1 (talk) 00:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC))

Would be alot easier if the heading was Interpretation rather than Heritage Interpretation or Thematic Interpretation. But with language interpreting having taken that mantle, I'm not sure how that can be managed? Anyone able to sort it out? Perhaps Interpretation (bracketed) would be better than Heritage Interpretation? But what suitable word would there be to differentiate this type of interpretation from language translation? Kitreid (talk) 12:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)