Hi ,
UK museums should take a leaf out of their continental colleagues books, a couple of weeks ago I was on a Holland glass trip and knowing both the past and present curators of the glass collection in the Gemeente Museum in the Hague I called before hand to see if a visit to the vaults was possible , the current curator was busy with an exhibition but the past curator offered to come in for the day and let us have a look at anything we wanted to , hands on , everything from 12th century Islamic glass to Venetian and Facon de Venice and a whole herd of magnificent engraved and stippled glasses, many hours of drooling and chat.
cheers ,
Peter.