Our Western Australian Museum passionate volunteers make a significant contribution to our organisation in a variety of roles by donating their valuable time, knowledge and resources.

We are currently recruiting for enthusiastic volunteers for WA Museum’s Collections and Research Legacy Project so if you would like to play a vital part in supporting curatorial and collections staff then please take a read of how to get in touch.

Legacy Project Overview

The Western Australian Museum (WAM) began its collections in 1892 and since then has accumulated over 8 million cultural and scientific items. A significant proportion of these items collected by our Curators or donated by other researchers and the public are not captured in our electronic records and cannot be evaluated, searched for, easily accessed, or curated by the museum. Donated pinned insect collections, Western Australian minerals, and marine invertebrates stored in alcohol are just some examples of unregistered items that make up the museum’s legacy collection.

The Legacy Collection Project aims to allocate every unregistered specimen in the collection with a unique registration number that is linked to the museum database.

Importance to the museum

Items in the Legacy Collection often only exist as a physical objects stored in the WAM Collections and Research Centre: they are inaccessible to the public or other institutions, they cannot be loaned to other museums and there are no records that can be shared with researchers. Therefore, their conservation, scientific and public amenity value is unknown and unutilized.

Why volunteers are needed

Volunteers will play an integral role by supporting curatorial and legacy collections staff with registering priority specimens from various museum sub-collections. This work will catalog, preserve and make available the WAM Legacy Collections to the general public and research groups.

 

Role title

Legacy Collection Project Volunteer

Role tasks

• Transcribing written or typed information on specimen labels.
• Using computers to perform basic spreadsheet management and data entry.
• Placing new registration labels on specimens.
• Carrying out conservation tasks (e.g. topping-up alcohol levels).
• Handling delicate specimens such as pinned insects (where applicable).
• Using specialized equipment such as cameras and microscopes (where applicable).

Required qualifications

No qualifications are required. However, all volunteers will need to undergo a National Volunteer Police Check, the cost of which is covered by the museum.

Number of vacancies

15-20 places will be available.

How to apply

Please provide a copy of your CV and a short expression of interest (one paragraph) outlining your relevant skills and experience.

Click here to apply

Deadline

Applications close at 5.00pm on Friday the 16th December 2023

Contact

For further information on the Legacy Collection Project please email Henry.Carrick@museum.wa.gov.au