Abstract
Behind the closed and locked doors
of the Qrnithology Section, located on
the second floo r of the Natural History
Museum of Los Angeles County, is
housed the tenth largest bird research
collection in the United States and Canada
(Auk, 1973, vol. 90, p. 136-170).
The reason for the locked doors is not
that we are trying to hide something
from the visiting public, but rather that
we are trying to protect what we do have,
and that is a collection of nearly 100,000
bird specimens from all over the world.
Each year over 1 ,000,000 people visit
the museum, and obviously we cannot
have that many people going through the
research collections, especially when the
full utilization of the collections requires
quick and easy retrieval of specimens
and/or data from specimens.