Training and coaching

Over the years we have delivered training and coaching in collection care to many hundreds of people whose work involves caring for portable heritage.  We aim to increase participants' confidence in object handling, storage and display, and in understanding what makes objects deteriorate and how best to prevent it.  

Our training usually takes the form of a one-day course for a group of about 10 to 15 people. The day will be relaxed, with quite a lot of participation by everyone attending. A lot of information will be delivered, and a comprehensive pack given to support what is explained on the day.

Courses that we run include:

• Care of paper and photograph collections
• Care of textile and costume collections
• Condition assessment of collections using the CAT database

We tend not to advertise these courses, but if you have a group of people who would be interested in attending such a day we would be happy to hear from you and discuss your requirements. The courses are often held on museum premises, and collection items can be used as examples in the training if required.

Some of our training courses are hosted by Museums Galleries Scotland. The courses are advertised on their website when they have been arranged.

More hands-on teaching in collection care is given in our coaching courses. These are very much led by the needs of our clients and their collections. We cannot teach you how to do conservation treatments, but less interventive work with objects, and work to improve storage and display can be taught.

Topics that we typically cover in coaching courses:

• Packing artefacts for safe storage
• Packing costume and textiles for storage
• Mounting textiles for display
• Refurbishing frames for works on paper
• Reducing soiling on archive papers
• Safely removing mould from museum objects
• Pest monitoring and control
• Marking and labelling museum objects
• Assessing the conservation condition of museum objects using the CAT database

Coaching is usually delivered to individuals on a one-to-one basis, or to groups of two, three, or four people, depending on the activities to be undertaken. Coaching is often done at the conservation studio, where we have all the necessary equipment and facilities, but it may be possible to deliver it elsewhere, such as at a museum. As with our training days we do not advertise coaching sessions, but would love to hear from you if you think you have a project that we could help you with.