On exhibits: it takes a lot of effort and not a little artifice to maintain a sense of reality at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: PICTURE THIS

First, do no harm. Steve Harvell lives by that motto on the job. Harvell, 54, isn't a physician. He's curator of exhibit design at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, in charge of maintaining what's being displayed at the seven-story, 200,000-square-foot structure in Raleigh. He and six others must do much of the work while some of the 500,000 visitors the museum attracts each year are in the building. The museum, with a staff of 120, budgets about $100,000 a year for supplies and equipment to keep up its exhibits. Performing that task can mean getting in a cherry picker to dust dangling whale bones or freshening up a coastal display with model birds suspended from nearly invisible wires on vine-wrapped trees. "In some cases, if you move a branch half an inch, you'll break a wire. You have to be able to touch things and not break other things." Harvell, who has worked at the museum nearly 10 years, starts work at 7 a.m., two hours before it opens. Just turning on the lights means checking some 3,000 fixtures. He also makes sure the mechanical exhibits work and vets all the audio and visual equipment. Then he begins routine maintenance of the four floors open to the public. His nemesis is dust. Some...