The tradition of collecting at the Science Museum of Minnesota dates back to 1870 and the Saint Paul Academy of Natural Sciences. In 1907, collections of scientific interest remaining from the academy's collections were turned over to the early Science Museum, the Saint Paul Institute. The early collections of the Institute were exhibited in their entirety in rows of glass cases, a far cry from collections management, storage, and exhibits methods of today. In 1933, the Institute established its scientific departments, and in the following years staff of the museum began to do their own collecting. Archaeological digs in the 1950s and 1970s, yearly paleontological field expeditions starting in 1959, and biological expeditions, especially in the 1970s, yielded many significant specimens.
Field collecting remains an important means of acquiring new collections.
The collections of the Science Museum of Minnesota are from the disciplines of Anthropology , Biology , Paleontology and Geology. The collections are used as the basis for research and scholarly publications by Science Museum curators as well as visiting scientists from all over the world. The museum's collections also provide for further contact with other members of the scientific community through loans and trades of casts and specimens with other institutions. Museum curators and Collections Management staff work with exhibits staff to provide and prepare specimens from the collections for public exhibition. In 1994 SMM created the Collections Management Department to address management deficiencies and issues identified by a conservation assessment survey.