too large for such treatment, or otherwise incapable of being kept in drawers. The usual solution (if so it can be called) is to place such objects on public exhibition, because in the public galleries alone can room be found for them, or the show-cases are the only receptacles big enough for them. This method of storing such specimens is opposed to all the requirements of the investigator, and has the additional defects of disturbing the harmonious arrangement of the exhibitiongallery, and of distracting the public with a multitude of unsuitable objects. For all parties, then, it were better to shut off a portion of the exhibition space and to devote it to storage alone.
Passing now to the function of instruction, we have to see how a museum may best serve students and amateurs. To its activities of collecting and preserving, it must add a third—that of exhibiting specimens.
The remarks on collecting need no repetition. As regards the other activities, two essentials must be kept in view. First, the need of the student to handle specimens in certain instances. Secondly, access for him to a fairly large series of accurately labeled specimens, the handling of which is not as a rule required.
The objects to be handled, which need not be very numerous, must be kept in such a way that their removal does not interfere with the exhibited series, does not require the prolonged attendance of a member of the staff, and does not give much trouble in unlocking, checking and so forth. For this purpose, therefore, it is as well to have a sample collection, stored in a workroom, or placed on its walls; and in this room might be posted an attendant, who would usually be carrying on his regular work.
The series not as a rule to be handled might be kept either in cases or in stop-drawers, under glass. What is important is that it should not interfere with or encroach on the public exhibits, for the following reasons: The public distracts the student; the student, with his chair and his own specimens, or his note-books, or his easel, gets in the way of the public; the explanatory labels useful to this class of student are too advanced for the general public and act as a deterrent; and here again the mere multitude of specimens, frequently of restricted interest, is but a source of weariness to the lay mind.
On these grounds the rooms for the technical series should be set apart, and should be in connection with a library whence books might be taken into them. The specimens on exhibition might be as numerous as space allowed, so long as needless duplication was avoided. There would be no need for elaborate methods of mounting; it is only essential that each specimen, with its label, should be clearly visible.[1]
- ↑ Only to those familiar with museums will this remark appear a needless truism
