How many items in museum collections are on display? And how many are in the cat

Question:

How many items in museum collections are on display? And how many are in the catalog but not on display?

In particular, I am looking for for stats on British Museum, Smithsonian Natural History, The Met, The Louvre and The Hermitage - but any information like that on big musuems would work as well.

Additional Details

4 months ago
In particular, I am looking for for stats on British Museum, Smithsonian Natural History, The Met, The Louvre and The Hermitage - but any information like that on big museums would work as well.

Also I am looking for numbers, so the answer of "a lot" wont help.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I am sure there are PLENTY that aren't on display...what I would recommend is checking the website and finding an email address for someone in their education department or if the museum has a library/research facility and send them an email asking them the question.

I've had to do something similar for some of my graduate work and have found most of the people answer emails and provide very good information.

for the Met, try: central.catalog@metmuseum.org

British Museum: collectionenquiries@thebritish...

And check this for the Louvre:
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/bdd_oeu...

good luck!