Description
This recruitment is for a Museum Curator 3 position in the Division of Museums and History within the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs at the Nevada State Museum (NSM), Carson City. The Nevada State Museum is a public institution dedicated to preserving and sharing the natural and human history of Nevada. Serving as both a research institution and a visitor-centered museum, NSM offers exhibitions, public programs, and educational opportunities ranging from K–16 learning to graduate-level research. The museum is deeply committed to community engagement through mission-driven programming, tours, and public scholarship. The Curator III of History provides leadership and strategic direction for the museum’s History Department. This role oversees the stewardship, preservation, and accessibility of the museum’s historical collections, which span from the pioneer era to contemporary Nevada history. The Curator supervises professional staff, including the Curator of Textiles and, in time, a Collections Manager, and is responsible for history collections housed across three facilities. The position works closely with the Museum Registrar and reports directly to the NSM Director. This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on museum work. The Curator is responsible for planning, policy development, budget oversight, and fundraising, while also ensuring proper cataloging, preservation, and management of collections and databases. The position supports research access, responds to public and scholarly inquiries, contributes to exhibitions and educational programming, and collaborates with education and exhibits staff to advance the museum’s public mission. The Curator also participates in outreach efforts and helps produce public-facing historical content that reflects and promotes Nevada’s rich heritage.
Curators perform a broad range of professional and technical museum work involving, but not limited to, assessment, evaluation, survey, inventory, preservation, research, education and planning for a specific collection and/or program area within a museum. Incumbents apply a variety of professional and advanced technical knowledge, skills, methods and practices in performing duties of a specialized nature.
Requirements
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
This job specification lists the major knowledge, skills and abilities of the job and is not all inclusive. Incumbent(s) will be expected to have knowledge, skills and abilities from a previous level.
Detailed knowledge of: museum principles and practices; collection management or education program management as appropriate; registration theory and accession procedures related to judging the relevance of potential donations and selecting items for exhibit and restoration, and knowledge of the principles and practices of exhibit development.
Working knowledge of: the various State and federal agencies responsible for cultural resources management; State and federal agencies and specific requirements pertaining to site importance, making survey recommendations, and conducting archaeological surveys on federal property.
General knowledge of: the division’s purpose, goals, methods, rules and regulations; current Native American interests and concerns in the Great Basin as appropriate.
Ability to: design, implement and manage appropriate curation methods and procedures; manage and supervise assigned program; write concise, analytical reports suitable for publication; plan logistics for field projects; research, classify, catalog and restore various objects of antiquity; prepare exhibit text regarding complex technical information and material understandable to lay persons; deal effectively with appraisers hired by the museum and with those retained by potential donors of artifacts to the museum; speak extemporaneously on short notice regarding historic preservation and archeology at agency and public meetings; analyze information, problems, situations, practices, policies and procedures to organize work flow and accomplish established objectives.
