Libraries, Archives, Museums: Alaska Museums Surveys and Data: Staffing & Support

Fifty (50) museums employed 272 full-time paid staff and 247 part-time paid staff.

The nine largest museums/visitor centers employed most of these staff. The rest had five or fewer full-time staff. Fourteen museums had no full-time paid employees but did pay part-time staff. Five museums had no paid employees, relying entirely on volunteers.

Data indicated that part-time workers provided the equivalent of more than 80 full-time positions.

Thirty-eight (38) museums have job descriptions.

Staff

Number of museums that have a range of volunteer and paid staff.
	Number of Museums
All volunteer	5
Only paid part-time staff	14
One full-time staff	8
Two full-time staff	11
Three to five full-time staff	8
Six to ten full-time staff	2
Eleven to Fifteen full-time staff	2
Twenty to twenty-five full-time staff	3
Twenty-five plus full-time staff	2

Volunteers (N=47)

Twenty-one (21) museums logged 1,000+ volunteer hours per year.

Not all museums that listed volunteers provided volunteer hours.

Volunteer numbers and hours.
Total no. of volunteers (N=47)	2,454
Total no. of volunteer hours (N=35*)	98,574
Avg. no. of volunteer hours per museum (N=35)	2,816
Avg. no. of hours per volunteer (N=35)	65.5
Range of volunteer hours per museum (N=35)	130 to 23,645

The most common use of volunteers was to host visitors and/or act as docents (25%). Volunteers performed maintenance work (13%), provided collection care (9%), and worked on exhibits (8%). Numerous other duties listed included: working in the museum store, bookkeeping, filling photo orders, collection processing, and helping with events.

Eighteen (18) museums utilized interns.

Thirty-one (31) museums indicated they had membership support and listed 11,276 members.