Collections are central and pose some of our most challenging problems.
Our collections number some 140 million items. More than 122 million, or 88 percent, are natural history objects, artifacts and specimens, including 30 million insects plus about 5,000 living animals at the National Zoological Park. About 12 percent are objects of cultural and technological history, including 13 million postage stamps. Each museum at the Smithsonian faces particular issues, and what may be a problem at one museum in no way shapes the fortunes of another. For example, the Freer Gallery of Art, which originated with Charles Lang Freer's 1906 bequest of 9,000 objects, has more than tripled its collection through acquisitions.