I found Eric Gyllenhaal's response to the open collections discussion quite
interesting.  I can share a few similar annecdotes from my years at the
Naturalist Center.  The Naturalist Center maintains an "open collection"
of about 30,000 primarily non-accessioned natural history specimens
as well as a library of about 2400 volumes.  It is specifically designed
to serve the public much like a library, for group and individual study.
The Center is set up much like a behind-the-scenes storage area in that
we use the same kinds of storage cabinets and preservation and organization
methods as are used in the research departments.  The major differences
between the Center and what I think most museums would call open
collections, or open storage, is that in our case, the public can handle the
material in the course of their study, and as I said before most of the
collection is non-accessioned, non-"research" collections.

I could relate well to Eric's description of people's surprize at the true
size of the collections.  One amusing incident at the Naturalist Center
came when a visitor was directed to us because they wanted to study
the insects.  They were familiar with the Museum's Insect Zoo, but they
wanted more.  When they came in, we directed them to the 100+
drawers of insects we have.  After a few minutes they came the the
front desk looking a bit bewildered saying they thought the Smithsonian
had more insects than that.  They thought our 7,000 square foot facility
WAS the Museum's "behind the scenes"...   Most, however, are overwhelmed
at what we have and are amazed to learn that the Naturalist Center would
make up, by itself, less than one thousandth of one percent of the
National Museum of Natural History's holdings.  (I find that hard to
fathom myself!)

As to the answers to the questions directly, I think that the Smithsonian
is pretty unique in that their visitorship is so huge that there is less
worry about whether an open storage would attract enough visitors as
much as they are concerned with simple crowd control.  In fact, the
Naturalist Center served only about 14,000 visitors annually compared
to nearly 6 million for the museum as a whole.  This lower number
reflected two important things.  One, the Naturalist Center was located
on a hard to find mezzanine between exhibit floors, so only the determined
or lucky stumbled upon us.  Second, and more critical, because we are a
hands on facility focusing on being a study center and not another
"passive" (relatively speaking) exhibit, we literally could not handle more
than, say 20,000 visitors annually or the wear and tear on the resources
and staff would be unmanageable.  Limiting physical access would help
to mitigate some of that, but the result would be less interactivity and
possibly less value to the public who is doing serious inquiries and
investigations.  Visitors currently spend an average of one hour using
the resources of the Center.  That would be compared to less than
15 minutes on average in any other museum exhibit of a similar
area.

Richard Efthim
Naturalist Center
Smithsonian Institution
741 Miller Drive, SE, Suite G-2
Leesburg, Virginia 20175
(800)729-7725

ps.  For those who noticed our address above, yes, we were "temporarily
relocated" to a facility about 30 miles NW of the city, while major
construction projects take place at the Museum on the Mall.  Interestingly,
being in a more rural setting has not affected our overall visitorship
numbers.  In fact our school group usage is now at record levels.