The museum’s administration archive has material back to the founding of the museum in 1894, and contains a large amount of historical material
There are separate archives belonging to present and former researchers at the museum. There are also a number of private archives, containing collections of letters, patterns and autobiographies. Documentation in connection with the museum’s artefacts, buildings and photographs are kept in separate information archives.
The museum has a comprehensive archive of drawings with surveying drawings of farmsteads and buildings from many parts of the country. The archives also contain the Worker’s and Husmanns’ Oral History Material collected in the 1950s and 1960s. Norsk etnologisk gransking has a large archive of autobiographical material sent in by their helpers, mainly answers to their questionnaires. The museum also has a large amount of Sami material.