My experience: Collections Care volunteering across the Museum

My name is Anna Watson and I’ve been volunteering with the National Museum of Wales since November 2024. I volunteer every week as a collection care assistant in the conservation department. I have enjoyed the experience immensely as every week is different, so I am always learning something new and developing my skills. I began this volunteering role after finishing my MSc in Care of Collections with Cardiff University and this opportunity has been fantastic for putting the skills I gained from that course into practice. So far, I have been able to help with exhibition maintenance in the art galleries and natural histories department, microclimate maintenance in archaeology, collection audits in entomology and have helped clean and relocate the fluid store (pictured here)! The opportunity to work in multiple departments and meet so many different curators, conservators and technicians who are all specialists in their fields has been invaluable and each week I am excited to see what we will do next.