Archive workshops for groups

What are archive workshops?

Our learning and engagement team offer free archive workshops for groups enabling participants to develop their archival research skills by analysing original materials.

These workshops involve an introduction to archives and an opportunity to handle and engage with material on a particular topic. We can also design bespoke archives workshops relevant to your group’s interests in partnership with you.

We offer these workshops to any group interested in researching our archives. This includes:

Higher Education student groups
LSE student groups
Community groups

If you are looking for a workshop for school students, see Learning programmes for schools.

LSE teaching staff – see Support for teaching and learning for all Library services and resources.

Examples of past archive workshops

Our workshops are based on the archives and special collections at LSE Library that focus on modern political, economic and social history including the work of pressure groups, think-tanks, campaigners and the development of social sciences in Britain.

Take a look at our collections highlights to see the range of archives available.

Past examples include:

Workshops on campaigns for equality using original material from The Women’s Library.
A partnership with the Economic History Department to embed archival material into the undergraduate module EH237. Students work in groups to investigate the archives and produce a research project that contributes to their course assessment.
General “introduction to archive” workshops that involve training on using archives catalogues, finding archives for your research, and practical handling of archives.
Bespoke workshops for community groups with a specific interest in our archives. For example, we worked with volunteers from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) as part of a project marking the centenary of the Zurich Congress.

Interested in arranging a workshop?

Our workshops get booked up very quickly so give us at least a month’s notice to arrange. As we have a limited capacity we are unable to confirm workshops upon application.

Complete our form and a member of the team will get back to you to discuss.

Our public events programme

We also run a public events programme related to our archive and special collections.