Behind the scenes
More than five million people pass through the doors of the
British Museum every year. They come to view the galleries, take in
temporary exhibitions, participate in events or just to spend a few
moments in one of London’s most spectacular public buildings.
Working
behind the scenes to make these visits possible are more than 1,000
members of staff, from cleaners, curators and conservators, to
security, scientists and the schools team. Some provide the very
latest scholarship to inform the displays, while some analyse and
treat objects to make sure they will be preserved for the future.
Others make sure the British Museum building is the best possible
place to house those objects and provide access to them.
This is no simple task. The building occupies 75,000 square
metres. That’s an area equivalent to nine football pitches or four
times the arena of the Coliseum in Rome. Every morning before the
doors open at 10.00 - and there are over 3,500 doors - it is made
ready to receive its visitors. Cases are cleaned and dusted,
objects are moved on or off display for study, conservation, or to
be sent around the world on a touring exhibition. Light-bulbs are
changed – almost 7,000 every year – floors cleaned, and brass
handrails polished.
Perhaps the toughest maintenance assignment is the regular
cleaning of the 3,300 panes of glass in the Great Court ceiling. It
is a monumental task for a team of specially-trained abseilers and
takes weeks at a time.
Back on the ground, the safety of visitors and the collection is
maintained by a team of 320 security and gallery staff who monitor
the building and galleries 24 hours a day.
In this section, we take a look at just some of the ways Museum
staff take care of the collection, how research - sometimes in far
away locations or in the science lab - helps us understand the
collection, as well as work that goes into building the
collection.