Chapter 23 



The 

 Collections 



FROM WHA'I EVER ASPECT ONE CHOOSES tO COnsider 

 the Museum, one inevitably returns to the collec- 

 tions. James Smithson left a legacy to found the Insti- 

 tution, but this legacy even on the surface was mor_ 

 than money, for his mineral cabinet and library vvert 

 included. From the time of the Institution's founding 

 by Congress, the individuals associated with the Smith- 

 sonian have been collecting and preserving objects. Thf 

 exhibits should not be considered as separate f rom the 

 collections; they are just a tiny part of the Museum's 

 holdings, put on display for the general public. Phil- 

 osophical questions of what to display, how much and 

 in what manner, whether originals or copies, and a host 

 of other important issues, are, in the final analysis, 

 secondary matters. No collections really means no ex- 

 hibits. 



Some aspects of science undergo periodic "revolu- 

 tions." Once a new concept has been introduced, earlier 

 concepts are discarded. One need only look at the value 

 of last year's computer to be aware of the frenetic rate 

 of change in some areas. In inarked contrast, other 

 aspects of science are cumulative. The study of history 

 naturally has a cumulative approach, and historians aim 

 in theory to save every scrap of the past, or at least 

 representative samples of it. Natural history likewise is 

 additive. Ideas and approaches change, but the objects 

 of study themselves have a value that does not diminish 

 through time. 



"The Nation's Attic" 



Spencer F"ullerton Baird, the second Secretary, was a 

 demon of a collector and inf ected many others with his 

 enthusiasm. It was under his tenure that the term "the 

 nation's attic" was first applied to the Institution. This 

 was not meant to be a compliment and indeed it had 

 a pejorative connotation, for it aptly characterized 

 buildings bursting at the seams, unopened crates, and 



Labrador Eskimo ivory dominoes j or gambling, accessioned 

 in 1886. While there is no "average" specimen, this is 

 representative enough in terms of size, complexity, and 

 problems of preservation. 



inadequately studied collections. For half a century, the 

 press tended to view the Smithsonian, and especially 

 its natural history endeavors, as a jumble. Those who 

 worked with the collections never saw them in that light, 

 but after all, the average person does not work in a 

 museum. 



A large part of museology, the study of museums, is 

 concerned with the inechanics of adequate storage of 

 objects. Inadequate f unding f or collection storage brings 

 with it a host of problems. The new National Museum 

 provided a typical example: "With ample basement 

 storage available for the first time in many years, steel 

 racks and drawers were ordered for the heavier stone 

 specimens in geology and anthropology. But the con- 

 tractor who submitted a low bid on the steel racks was 

 too high in his bid for the accompanying drawers. Con- 

 sequently, two bids were let, one for the racks and one 

 for the drawers. And the low-bid storage drawers, too 

 narrow and too light weight for their intended purpose, 

 buckled and dropped off runners in the low-bid racks. 

 I [Neil Judd] do not know how much our administrators 

 saved on that transaction, but forty years passed before 

 the last of that ill-advised purchase was surreptitiously 

 replaced.'" 



In the public mind, collections dve kept in cigar boxes, 

 and indeed a number in the Museum actually were; 

 remember that for decades such boxes were abundant, 

 and were free — the best possible price for a museum. 

 Now these boxes are themselves collector s' items. As a 

 piece of trivia in connection with containers, during the 

 late 1940s A. R. Loeblich in Geology decided that the 

 marine-bottom samples dredged years earlier by the 

 Fish Commission steamer Albatross should be trans- 

 feri ed to bottles of uniform size for easier storage and 

 handling. Every evening he would discard old jars, and 

 every morning Malcolm Watkins in Anthropology would 

 carry a number of them away for his collections. 



The fine points of collection storage have evoked 

 some florid prose at the Museum, much of it concerning 

 fossils: 



With fossils, one is not troui)led by evaporation. 

 . . . One is not conerned with material drying to 



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