It seems to me that in most institutions there would be a large difference between "behind-the-scenes" tours of the general facilities and of the collections areas.  While it is only a personal opinion, I don't think that collections areas tours are, generally, good for the artifacts or very instructive to the visitor since there is relatively little interpretation possible.

In answer to Dawn's query, I'd think using volunteers or interpretive staff instead of curators to lead facilities (non-collections area) tours would be perfectly acceptable.  If these tours are frequent, the staff in each department will come to hate your request that they drop what they're doing to talk to your tour group (he said from experience).   Keep in mind that the workers in these areas are doing projects which they hope will serve many (hundreds?  thousands?) of people, and your request for their time to handle a couple or a few of your customers may be viewed as intrusive.

Chris Dill

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