In early 2000, the Alaska State Museum mailed survey forms to 75 museums and related visitor facilities in Alaska. The primary purpose of the survey was to compile documentation on Alaska museums and to provide this information to the museum profession and the public. Requests from museums in the state for such statistics are fairly common. Additionally, state law requires that "the department shall…collect and keep current information concerning museum activities throughout the state." A statistical baseline will be useful for comparison purposes in the future.
There are 67 institutions in the database at present. The amount of information on each institution varies, however, depending on the source.
- Forty-eight museums completed all or some of the survey.
- Six museums were included using information from the Official Museum Directory of the American Association of Museums.
- One reflects information supplied on a Grant-in-Aid application.
- Twelve others are included with only limited information, such as addresses and type of museum, as known by ASM staff.
Therefore, most of the data reflects information from 55 or fewer institutions. Please note that respondents may not all have been using the same criteria for their answers. In some instances, they have made estimates. Because of an initially low response rate, there were two follow-up mailings of the survey, so data is about evenly divided between 1999 and 2000. Thus, the survey shows the status of Alaska's museums at the turn of the 21st century. We will continue to add new information and update the existing information, as we are able. The State Museum would like to thank those institutions that responded to the survey.
