Courses run in the laboratory, not in a seminar room. Twelve places on the bench courses, because that is how many people can have their hands on the instruments in a day without anybody spending the afternoon watching; ten where the material is fragile, and sixteen for the half-day on reading a report, which needs no instruments at all.
Course calendar
| Course | Length | 2026 dates | Places |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fibre identification for collection staff | 2 days | 15–16 September; 24–25 November | 12 |
| Store survey methods and logger placement | 2 days | 6–7 October | 12 |
| Iron gall ink: assessment and triage | 1 day | 20 October; 2 February 2027 | 10 |
| Reading a laboratory report | Half day | Monthly, first Thursday | 16 |
| Mould: recognition, sampling and the first week | 1 day | 11 November | 10 |
What the courses cover
Fibre identification for collection staff
Preparing a fragment, staining with Herzberg and Graff “C”, and reading the slide. By the afternoon of day two everyone has separated rag from chemical wood on unknown samples and, more usefully, has learned how often they cannot tell — which is the result that stops a catalogue from filling with confident errors.
Store survey methods and logger placement
Where a logger goes, how far a reading generalises, calibration drift over a year, and the analysis that turns twelve months of five-minute records into three sentences a facilities committee will act on.
Iron gall ink: assessment and triage
Transmitted-light examination, perforation counting, indicator testing and the ranking problem. Includes the current programme data, so participants see the indicators that did not work as well as those that did.
Reading a laboratory report
Half a day on measurement uncertainty, accredited versus research methods, and the difference between what a number says and what a funding bid would like it to say. The most-booked thing we teach.
Mould: recognition, sampling and the first week
Tape lifts, transport, what culture adds and what it costs in time, and the sequence of decisions in the days after an outbreak is found. Taught with material from two real incidents.
Bursary places
Two places on every course are held for staff or students without institutional training budgets, and cover the fee in full. Applications are a short paragraph to the teaching desk saying what you work on; they are read in the order received and we do not ask for references. Places unclaimed six weeks before a course are released for general booking.
Teaching at your institution
Any course except fibre identification can be taught on your premises for groups of eight or more. Fibre identification stays here because it needs the microscopes and a fume extraction bench, and a two-day course that spends four hours setting up borrowed equipment is not worth anybody’s travel.
In-house teaching is charged at a day rate plus travel, with the same reduced schedule for charities and local authority services that applies to laboratory work.
