Viewing depot
A viewing depot is a publicly accessible place in which objects from a specific museum are stored. It allows the museum visitor to participate in the museologist's point of view, attitude and work, namely in collecting, preserving and researching. An example of such a depot is the Laurenz Foundation's Schaulager in Münchenstein near Basel (Switzerland).
The Lucerne Historical Museum was completely refurbished in 2003 based on the Schaudepot presentation concept. In a publicly accessible area, museum visitors navigate independently through the depot using a PDA with a barcode scanner. The closed area can be visited accompanied by a depot employee. These inspections are staged tours, with the depot employee being mimed by professional actors.
The Museum of Decorative Arts in Dublin follows a very similar presentation concept.
Show depots differ from regular museum depots : Since the focus is on sensible visitor guidance, a list is selected according to collection areas and contextual content, materials and formats are secondary. Air conditioning and safety technology are based more on the requirements that apply to exhibitions . Since the aisle widths, which are adapted to the flow of visitors, do not achieve the usual packing density due to the didactic layout and the flow of visitors, most museums with viewing depots have additional depots that are not or only rarely accessible to the public.
