Best all-around shop: National Building Museum. Again.

Shop most likely to cause temporary blindness: Hillwood Museum and Gardens. ("Your shop glitters," a recent visitor was overheard saying.)

Best bookstore: National Gallery of Art.

Best color selection of overexposed product line: Textile Museum, for its rainbow variety of Harveys Seatbeltbags (purses made from woven seat belts).

Best newcomer: International Spy Museum.

Best variety of typefaces in rubber-stamp alphabets: Phillips Collection, with four.

Best-smelling shop: National Museum of the American Indian, near the incense and smudge sticks.

Top five T-shirt designs: "Deny Everything" (Spy Museum, $20); "Art School" (Corcoran Gallery of Art, $20); William Wegman Weimaraner photo (Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, $25); Hokusai "Thunder God" (Freer and Sackler galleries, $25); Hirshhorn logo (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, $14).

Best in-store music: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. (Sample track: "Lela," by Hakim, featuring James Brown.)

Best new coffee-table book: "I Am Plastic: The Designer Toy Explosion" (Corcoran, $40).

Funniest gag book: "Are You a Geek? 10{+3} Ways to Find Out" (National Building Museum, $10).

Best children's art toy: Buddha Board drawing tablet (Hirshhorn, $40).

Most individual thematic shops per museum: National Museum of Natural History, with five (main museum store, "family" museum store, "tricerashop," gems and minerals store, and mammals store).

Most overwhelming shop: American Visionary Art Museum/Sideshow. And I mean that in a good way.

Strongest estrogen reading: National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Strongest testosterone reading: National Air and Space Museum.

Today's museum shop has evolved into a destination in its own right.

These objects were inspired by a popular saying.

Art-themed neckties are a staple of the museum-shop biz.

Other public spaces offer one-of-a-kind gift shops.