Museum opens entire collection

The Utah Museum of Natural History opened its doors Saturday — and its cupboards, basement, storerooms, offices and, well, everything.

The museum put its entire 1.5 million-object collection on display all day during its "What's in the Basement" event.

"This is the biggest day for us," said Patti Carpenter, public relations manager for the museum. "It's a fun day for us because we get to show everyone everything they usually don't get to see."

Highlights included plenty to see and plenty of people to answer questions. In all, 40 employees and 60 volunteers were spaced throughout the basement and other areas to explain the collections that are not labeled like they would be in the permanent display areas.

"This all belongs to the people of Utah," Carpenter said. "We pull out all the stops. We have all the staff and all volunteers here today."

Normally, only 1 percent of the collection is on display in the public area, but the museum is in the process of raising funds for a new building that would open in 2009. The new building is still in the planning stages, but it is hoped that in some way, visitors will be able to see the basement collection. Research areas, for example, would be opened to public view through glass windows.

"We want to bring the back forward," Carpenter said.

This is the tenth year the museum has held the event. Items in the collection are from all around the world, though much of it is from the Great Basin area.

Saturday was also the first time people have been able to see the almost-complete skeleton of the Falcarius, the new "missing link" dinosaur that was named in May.

It also was an opportunity to gain an understanding of how scientists excavate and bring specimens to museums — in burlap and plaster sacks, almost like what you get if you break your arm.

Racks and racks of all sorts of things filled the surprisingly large basement, including dinosaur remains, pots and human artifacts, mineral specimens, ancient mammal remains and fossilized plants.

Ed Delay, who has been volunteering at the museum for years, said the work done there is both fun and important.

"People really enjoy it," he said. "They're amazed by the kinds of animals we have in this collection."

Duncan Metcalfe, curator of anthropology for the museum, said the basement catches some people by surprise.

Brian Lichtenstein and his son, David, were two of the many visitors.

"It was very interesting to see many of the bigger items that aren't usually on display upstairs," Lichtenstein said. "They have so many areas they don't usually open; there's four or five rooms downstairs."

"The best part was the different shells and skulls and bones," David said.

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E-mail: jgreaves@desnews.com