Museums and collections, 2000

Oslo had nearly 37 per cent of all visits, whereas only 9 per cent of all the museums are located in Oslo. Hordaland has the highest share of museums at 10 per cent and about 13 per cent of all visits. The museums in Aust-Agder had the fewest visits with only 0.6 per cent of all visits. 4.6 million visits are registered as individual visits, and about 4.6 million are registered as paying.

3 040 exhibitions

There was a total of 3036 exhibitions at museums in 2000. Social history museums had a total of 2105 exhibitions, whereas art museums had 289 exhibitions. Fifteen per cent of the exhibitions were at museums in Oslo. Following Oslo, Nordland had the second-most exhibitions, with 10 per cent.

Of the exhibitions, 1 951 were basic exhibitions, about 839 were temporary exhibitions and 246 were travelling exhibitions.

24 million objects

Around 24 million objects were registered at Norwegian museums in 2000. 10.6 million were natural history objects, 4.6 million were cultural history objects, whereas approximately 520 000 were historical fine art objects. In addition the museums had about 8 million photographs.

In 2000 Norwegian museums administered 5 572 buildings and structures worthy of preservation. Social history museums had about 90 per cent of the buildings and structures worthy of preservation.

NOK 1.66 billion in revenue

The museums included in the survey had a total of NOK 1.66 billion in total revenue. Public contributions comprised 65 per cent of the museums revenues, whereas ticket revenues comprised around 9 per cent.

Of the museums on the mainland, Troms had about 89 per cent of its museums revenues from public contributions, whereas the museums in Sør-Trøndelag had the lowest subsidies, at around 56 per cent. The museums in Møre og Romsdal had the highest share of ticket revenue, at around 20 per cent, while Østfold had approximately 2 per cent of revenues from ticket sales. Total expenditure for the museums in 2000 was NOK 1.66 billion.

Most are foundations

The most common form of organisation of museums is a foundation, and 35 per cent of the museums have this form of ownership. Twenty-eight per cent of the museums are municipally-operated, and 16 per cent are operated by associations. Foundations represent 47 per cent of total revenues, and municipally-operated museums represent nearly 11 per cent of revenues. Associations received about 78 per cent of their revenues from public contributions, foundations 58 percent, while municipally-operated museums had nearly 70 per cent in public contributions.

In 2000, 3 214 man-years were worked. Of these, 2 670 were remunerated man-years and 2 095 of these man-years were by permanent employees.

The number of museums reporting to the museum statistics changes from year to year. For that reason it is not possible to provide any comparisons from previous years.

Tables:

• Table 1 Museums and collections. Visits and exhibitions. 2000
• Table 2 Museums and collections. Size of collections. 2000
• Table 3 Museums and collections. Finance, employment position and man-years. 2000
• Table 4 Museum statistics by form of organisation. Revenues and public contributions. 2000