NPS I & E Policy

The National Park Service has had many generations to fine tune its policies. As you might imagine, the NPS has a policy for just about everything under the sun and probably a lot more than that, too!

Of utmost interest in our discussion of Social Media Usage in The NPS is the umbrella policy that is germane to "Interpretation & Education." Afterall, that's what social media is all about.

There is an NPS website dedicated solely to NPS Policy. Not surprisingly, it's address is http://www.nps.gov/policy/. We turned to this website for guidance. Chapter 7 of the definitive 180-page Management Policy manual covers the key area of "Interpretation & Education." We printed this specific chapter to a PDF file and archived it on our Google Documents area. You can click here to access and download it.

Of most interest to readers of this blog is a phrase stated on Page 90 of the Management Policy manual. It states: "As a result of technological advances, people can visit a national park “virtually” and connect with park resources at their convenience. Hence, for purposes of this chapter, the terms “visitor” and “park visitor” are defined as anyone who uses a park’s interpretive and education services, regardless of where such use occurs." (NOTE: Bold & Italic emphasis were added by the blog author.)

It is from those key words above that NPS Management acceptance and encouragement of social media usage stems.

We will be searching as many NPS Units as possible to determine how "on the ground" implementation of this policy takes place.