VOLUNTEERS AS FORCE-MULTIPLERS IN THE FOSSIL LAB

In many museums and research institutions, volunteers are an under utilized resource in both research and in the laboratory. Volunteers can be viewed as a threat (“why keep staff if the volunteers can do the work for free?”) or as force multipliers. At the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, volunteers are viewed as a vast resource pool of free labor that has allowed the Museum to accomplish more than it could otherwise. In 2006, 1679 volunteers contributed over 203,510 hours (equivalent to 97.8 full-time staff) with an estimated worth of about $3.7 million. In the Department of Earth Sciences, 125 volunteers are active in the fossil laboratory. These volunteers have logged 131,456 hours of fossil preparation in the past 10 years, or the equivalence of 6.25 full time staff (40 hr/wk, no leave or vacation). This compares with the 2.5 full-time paid staff currently working in the laboratory. During the same 10 years, volunteers have also logged an additional 30,128 hours of fieldwork, or the equivalent of 5.75 full time staff working in the field for 3 months/yr. (40 hr/wk). Combined, the field and lab work is equivalent to 7.75 full time staff. This labor force does require considerable staff time in supervision. Training is done through a mandatory 8 week, 2 h/wk preparation class. The class effectively weeds out volunteers who discover the romance of preparation is not the same as the reality of the work, and also gets groups of volunteers up to a certain level of competency for integration with more seasoned lab volunteers. Volunteers bring a commitment and dedication to not seen in many graduate students. Volunteers who are retired also approach museum work with a maturity not yet developed in young graduate students and are more willing to admit what they do not know. The use of volunteers has resulted in an extraordinary high level of productivity for the department than if the work was only done by paid staff.