Mr. Levin --
 
Here are a few books worth chewing on, each to suit a slightly different
taste:
 
Marie C. Malaro, A LEGAL PRIMER ON MANAGING MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Inst. Press, 1985).
 
Wm. T. Alderson & Shirley Payne Low, INTERPRETATION OF HISTORIC SITES, 2d
ed. (Nashville, TN: Amer. Assn. for State & Local Hist., 1985).
 
Jay Anderson, TIME MACHINES: THE WORLD OF LIVING HISTORY (Nashville, TN:
Amer. Assn. for State & Local Hist., 1984).
 
Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig, eds., HISTORY MUSEUMS IN THE UNITED
STATES: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT (Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989).
 
Each of these in turn offers other references and avenues for further
reading.  If you want a more personalized and close-to-home intro to public
history, try
calling Dr. John Jameson at Kent State University.  He runs the public
history program there and is interested in new adherents to the field
(and he ably directed my public history thesis!).  Also, look through a
journal called THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN, in which you'll find plenty of
articles and essays about historians in business, government, public
policy planning, preservation, etc.
 
Best wishes, Doug Lantry
University of Delaware-Hagley Program in the History of Industrial America
& Museum Studies
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