Watching over the museum watchers

By Louisa Cleave

The top guns in New Zealand and international security are being trusted with the lives of world leaders - but not our artefacts.

The director of the Auckland Museum, Dr Rodney Wilson, is camping out in his office through the weekend to oversee the security checks and preparations for the leaders' retreat on Monday.

The Auckland Domain and the museum will be sealed off to the public and blanketed in security from Saturday night.

Dr Wilson will move into a caretaker role and set up a stretcher in his office.

He will be joined on museum patrol by a senior security guard and two in-house technicians.

They will be looking over the shoulders of security forces and not allowing them near national treasures without museum staff present.

"With this kind of security the Government would wish to be in control. However, this property belongs to the [Auckland Museum] Trust Board," said Dr Wilson.

The board's need to look after its collections transcended the Government's needs.

There could not be uncontrolled access to collections in this building, even for the Government.

Dr Wilson expects it will take a day to fully secure the museum.

Although examining each storage box and display case is not out of the question, he hopes it will not be necessary.

Collections in freezers have to be kept at controlled temperatures and each department has storage rooms with rows upon rows of boxes.

So, apart from the walking spooks who will be at the museum ferreting out any hidden dangers, how does Dr Wilson feel about camping out with the stuffed animals, a life-sized elephant and whale skeletons?

"I've often been here at night," he said. "This museum isn't spooky."