Training and guidance for museums

Collections Care

This training resource focuses on the basics of caring for museum collections. It offers practical advice, shared good practice through case studies and demonstrations, and provides resources and links for further learning.

This resource is aimed at staff or volunteers new to caring for collections, or those looking for a refresher in the subject area. It was developed in response to COVID-19, when we adapted the National Training Programme to deliver a series of self-guided training resources for partner museums.

The training strands below centre on the most in-demand elements of our training programme, which are object handling, object packing,object labelling and integrated pest management.

How to complete the training

1. Follow the resources

This training has been designed to be followed in order before putting it into practice, as good object handling is a cornerstone of good object packing. However, this resource will continue to be available online so you can learn at your own pace.

2. Go at your own pace

You will find a combination of media including images, videos and downloadable documents to use. It is not necessary for you to review all the contents at once, there are natural breaks between them that you may wish to use.  

3. Get in touch

In addition to this self-guided online training we provide other services including webinars to give you an opportunity to ask any questions arising from this training. Please contact partnerships@nms.ac.uk for more details.  

Object handling

Museum objects are at greater risk of accidental damage when they are being handled or moved. It is therefore important to know how to handle all objects in the correct and most appropriate way.
Find out more

Object packing

After good handling practices, the next most important skill to apply to consulting and moving collections is good packing.
Find out more

Object labelling

This training sets out our best practice guidelines for labelling objects in museum collections.
Find out more

Integrated pest management

This training sets out our guidelines and best practice for integrated pest management.
Find out more

License for reuse

These training pages are licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are delighted for you to reuse, build on and publish the training content in these pages for non-commercial purposes. When you do, we ask that you credit National Museums Scotland and share the content under the same licensing terms.