We give behind-the-scenes tours virtually every day of the week; staff
opinion runs the gamut about this practice.  On the one hand, we really
enjoy showing the 90% of our collection not on exhibit, on the other
hand, it takes a tremendous amount of staff time and energy to give
really excellent tours.
Our visitors invariably love the tours.
To schedule the tours, someone from the groups, or staff from other
departments, have to make appointments with someone from collections.
One caveat:  we've offered behind-the-scenes tours to the general public
on a few of our "free" days and as part of members' nights here at TCM;
no matter how we've publicized the tours, we've had very, very poor
attendance and have decided to discontinue this offer.
School group tours, however, are always successful; these numbers
continue to grow.  In fact, we've made an annual program of school tours,
each February, called "Behind the Big, Brown Doors."

Robin Lipp
Collections Manager
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
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