Goals of the National Maritime Heritage Seminar Series

1. Build an understanding of historic preservation tenets, legal requirements, and principles of historic site management throughout an expanding maritime community, thereby encouraging professional practices for new lighthouse owners, many of whom have never previously operated historic or maritime sites.
    
2. Through a series of four National Maritime Heritage Educational Seminars over the course of the next three years, build a coalition of museums, libraries, and lighthouse preservation organizations that will provide:
    
   • One-on-one interaction with maritime scholars and professional contacts including a caring network of professional maritime colleagues and support.
      
   • Printed and digital resources regarding historic preservation and site management ? a second edition of the Historic Lighthouse Preservation Handbook in print and CD-ROM versions.
      
   • Public education and interpretation opportunities in schools, libraries, and maritime museums including a Maritime Poster Series and the Story of Light: A Lighthouse Site Poster Kit.
      
   • A lifelong reference point for continuing education about the significance of America's maritime heritage, its preservation, and the successful management of scarce maritime/light station resources via the establishment of preservation resource centers at coastal libraries and maritime museum sites nationwide.
      
3. Establish lighthouse museums and libraries as coastal community centers for lifelong learning by supporting an enduring commitment to preserving light stations according to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Preservation.
    
4. Facilitate the establishment of and encourage a permanent commitment to provide historic, cultural or community service site uses and public interpretations at transferred light stations (as required by federal law) to an audience of the general public. This can include environmental, cultural, historic, scientific, or other such applications.
    
5. Form an enduring public/private partnership that will promote appropriate, successful historic preservation and historic site management by providing tactical resource materials, encouraging additional study, and enabling an audience interested in lighthouse ownership to make sound judgments about professional issues and opportunities.