Gene,

At first, I didn't think your analogy really works.  But after reading
other's replies and thinking about it, I actually think you are probably
right.  Most people don't care what's going on behind the scenes.  It's a
shame, but most people visit museums primarily for a dose of "culture" and
educational entertainment.

When I was in college, taking museum studies courses, one of my assignments
was to go to a museum and covertly follow a visitor or group of visitors
throughout their entire visit in the museum.  It took a few tries not getting
"caught", but I finally managed to complete the assignment, writing down
EVERY single thing the visitors did at each exhibit.  What I, and all the
other students in my class, learned is that museum visitors do not spend a
great deal of time contemplating the mysteries of the universe.  I'd love to
go on with amusing anecdotes of our experiences with this assignment, but
basically what I'm trying to say is that, if the visitor just wants to have
something fun to do on a Saturday afternoon, why in the world would the
visitor be interested in the inner workings of the museum?

Don't everyone panic now.  I am not advocating that we simply shut our office
doors, and let them eat stuffed bears.  Au contraire...we have a
RESPONSIBILITY to provide easy access to anyone interested in what we do and
how we do it!  People trust museums to be doing whatever it is museums are
supposed to do, and do it well!  Of course WE know what we are supposed to be
doing, and we do our best to do it well.  The problem is, THEY don't know
what it is we are doing.  Thus, our responsibility....

However, I can't stop here.  Accessibility (in the psychological and
informational sense) goes beyond mere responsibility.  We love our work, yes?
 Otherwise we would be CPAs ($$$$).  And when we love what we do and get
excited about it, this comes out in  how we express ourselves, and others get
excited about what we do.  In other words, if we provide for the visitor
exciting exhibits, events, lectures, pamphlets, etc. that give them a sense
of what museums are fundamentally, we are going to get people excitied with
us.  This will lead to increased visitorship, increased membership, increased
donations, and (oops!) increased competition for positions (!) when we get
enough people excited about museums so that they want to do what we do:
preserve and educate.

Sure, most people aren't really interested in what's going on behind the
scenes.  But the reason is they DON'T KNOW what's going on behind the scenes.
 Let's show them!