What does the onlooker get from the experience?

According to Eve M. Kahn’s “Antiques” column ( “Repairing a Famous Catch”, The New York Times, September 11, 2015), the L.C. Bates Museum’s twelve foot long preserved marlin (caught by Ernest Hemingway in the Bahamas in the 1930s) will undergo conservation treatment in the museum gallery. Conservation is slow and laborious. Many of the processes are not dramatic or even interesting to the uninformed onlooker.  Whenever I hear about a conservation project done in full view of the public, I wonder what understanding of the conservator’s work will the visitor who watches for five minutes or even an hour take away from the experience.