The Ostanai regional Museum of Local Lore is a research and cultural and leisure institution engaged in the storage, study and public presentation of monuments of natural history, material and spiritual culture located in the storehouses and exhibited in a stationary exposition, at temporary exhibitions, both in the museum itself and outside it.

One of the most important departments on which the work of the entire museum is based is the department of research support for accounting and storage of funds.

No less important are the departments that are entrusted with the main work on the presentation of museum collections, the creation of new expositions and temporary exhibitions: the Department of research support for regional History, the sector of research support for nature and ecology of the region, the department of exposition and exhibition support and the Department of Fine Arts.

The cultural and educational function of the museum is of paramount importance in modern conditions and, therefore, the department of excursion and cultural and educational work is a very important department in the structure of the museum.

The museum provides great consulting, advisory and practical assistance to state and public museums of the region, paying special attention to newly formed ones. The coordinator of this work is the Department of scientific and methodological support.

A good help in the work of the museum is a closed scientific library, which contains more than 10 thousand copies of books and magazines of historical, local history, natural history, art history, reference and methodological literature.