Natalie,

 

I think your instincts in this situation are correct.  It seems absurd to me that 1/3 of the house “tour” is spent providing an introduction.  I think that in their enthusiasm, many docents want to share all the information they know about the site and don’t know how to edit themselves.  That type of verbal diarrhea might make them feel good, but I don’t think it makes the visitor feel good.   

 

During the summers I spent as a Park Ranger, they regularly told us to “use the resource.”  A 20-minute lecture can be presented to an audience regardless of location.  People come to historic sites for a variety of reasons, but one of the more significant ones is so that they can interact with the resource (the battlefield, historic house, artwork, etc.).  Time spent providing information that is not directly related to what the visitor is seeing should be very limited.  

 

I fought a similar battle about orientation with the interpreters at a historic site at which I previously worked.  Many of them were trained to do their introduction to the tour using a large relief map of the region.  The map was used to explain how the armies (it was a Civil War battlefield) arrived and why the historic site we preserved was significant.  Initially these introductions represented 5-minutes of a 45-minute tour.  Over time, these introductions lengthened (and became more convoluted) to 20-minutes.  When I evaluated the interpreters and criticized them for tours that ran 1-hour or more, they told me there just wasn’t enough time allocated to tell people everything they wanted to share.  I forced the interpreters to abandon the use of the relief map (except in rain conditions) and instead do their introduction in the field and use a hand-held map to orient visitors (if necessary).  There was no end to the complaining until the interpreters realized themselves that the visitors were more excited to be on the battlefield and hear the stories associated with the particular site than they were to sit in the lobby of a museum building listening to a lengthy discussion about all the places in eastern Virginia they were not going to see.

 

In my experience, the introduction to the tour should be short and direct.  Guides should arrive at the gathering place 10-minutes before the tour is to start.  This allows them to warm-up the audience, gather information about their knowledge and interest, scope-out any potential challenges (i.e. hearing/visually/mobility impaired, rambunctious child, etc.) and establish a rapport with the group.   Gather the group at the appointed time.  Tell them who you are, what the name of the tour is (in the event that they are in the wrong place), how long it will last (in case they don’t really have the time to dedicate), and where you are going to go.  The guide should then briefly establish what the theme of the tour will be (the theme should be able to be expressed in one or two sentences) and transition to the first stop.  Because of its brevity, a special room should NOT be required for orientation to most tours.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Andrew H. Talkov

Exhibition Coordinator for Virginia's Civil War Sesquicentennial

Virginia Historical Society

428 N. Boulevard

Post Office Box 7311

Richmond, Virginia  23221-0311

Phone:  804-340-2276

Fax:  804-342-9697

Email:  [log in to unmask]