Number of objects on display
Number of objects on display: 3220 objects (permanent exhibitions), and approx. 1700 objects (annual average for temporary exhibitions).

Number of objects in storage
50.000 objects
The Slovene collection has grown to 40.000 objects and non-European collections to 10.000 objects.

Slovene and equally important non-European collections in the field of material, social and spiritual culture, which the museum preserves, documents, researches, presents, and communicates.

Slovene collections from the past to today. They are the result of the maturing process of ethnological and anthropological science in Slovenia. Their collecting has started in 1821. By the end of the 19th century the collections had acquired a more determined local physiognomy with the identification of three cultural landscapes (the Mediterranean, Alpine and sub-Pannonian). The Slovene collections are cared for by specialised museum curators and experts. Today they are treated in a contemporary way as multi-layered bearers of information, a material witness of working and festive days in the life of rural and urban population, and as narrators of creativity, knowledge, wisdom, and co-existence with the natural world.

Non-European collections collections are arranged by continents and by donors or sellers, who include researchers, globetrotters, missionaries, seamen, merchants and diplomats. For example: Indonesian and Chinese collections, Codelli's collection from Togo, Baraga's North American Indian collection.

Intangible heritage: The SEM as a central ethnological institution is a national coordinator of the Register of the intangible heritage of Slovenia. It is focusing intensively on the safeguarding of intangible heritage (such as the shrovetide traditions) and is responsible for their audio-visual and
photographic documentation as well as for the selection of proposals of units to be listed in the Register. It 2012 a manual entitled "The Intangible Heritage" was published.