History museums included in the study are making positive contributions to the expansion of opportunities for education of the public through museum facilities, holdings, and educational programs. However, extensive undeveloped potential for such educational opportunity remains.

Recommendations. Further research was recommended concerning: Ways in which museum educational programs might better serve the schools, especially on the secondary level; ways to promote more interaction among the museums and the schools in general in order to generate better, more organized programs; methods for getting museum support groups to become self-motivating and self-perpetuating; the feasibility and need for establishing a national level museums department, which would be responsible solely for museums and which would promote nationwide use of the educational potential of the country's museums by supplying aid for museum educational program development and implementation in the form of advice, consultants, and information on where and how to obtain additional funding; innovative ways to present educational programs in a museum setting rather than merely using public school teaching methods and techniques in the museum; the potential and feasibility of using individually guided, in-house produced educational packets; the potential role in the museum in Community Educational/Life-long Learning educational programs; the effectiveness, in terms of cost and academic potential, of educational programs being carried out through the use of mobile facilities; and ways to establish and maintain a new, formal, statewide plan for financing museums in the state.

Major obstacles to educational program development and implementation as designated by the museum respondents were: insufficient funding, lack of quality personnel, and too few volunteers.

Procedures. In this study twelve history museum directors or the individuals responsible for educational programs were asked to respond to a questionnaire concerning the methods and activities used when developing and implementing educational programs. Only ten museums were included in the study because two did not meet the established criteria. In addition, a follow-up interview was made with the respondent of each museum included in the study in order to supplement and substantiate the data obtained by the questionnaire. The data received from the questionnaire and follow-up interview were tallied and analyzed, resulting in the following conclusions and recommendations.

Through more complete and systematic planning, more extensive and thorough use of human resources in the community, through heightened public awareness of the role museums can play in the education process and the consequent generation of better funding, museums can more nearly come to realize their educational potential.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to acquire information concerning the methods and activities used by selected history museums in Oklahoma when developing and Implementing educational programs and to formulate from those methods and activities suggestions for future programming in history museums.

No published printed guidelines were reported being used to aid in program development and delivery, and museum respondents considered some practices used to be more useful than others.

In all the sample museums, the director or the officer in charge of educational programs was responsible for carrying out development activities. Museum personnel were those most often involved in the development and delivery of programs, generally for people of all ages, and most often using in-house facilities.

Conclusions. The majority of the museums in the study employed a director and had personnel with college degrees. More of the museums had annual educational program budgets below $3,000 than above, with funds coming primarily from state sources.