Bingo ! The Entomology Collections Study Centre at The Manchester Museum. Oxford Road. Manchester

I decided to have a look at The Manchester Museum website to see if they have any facilities that I can draw upon.

1. The Manchester Museum.
http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk

Fig-1

I went to their website and on their homepage (Fig-1), there was a tab called 'our collection'.

I remembered from a previous visit many years ago, that they have an incredible natural history and archaeology collection.

Could this be the perfect venue?

Upon further researching the website, I found that they have what they call their 'collections study centre' (fig-2).

Fig-2

As soon as I read the first line of the page, 

"The Collections Study Centre is open to everyone wanting to carry out research - including students, artists, budding archaeologists, naturalists and anthropologists." 

I knew that this could be the perfect venue for my project. It is local, free to enter and is purposefully designed for people including students who want to undertake research into any one of the many fascinating collections at the museum.

I also noted on the same page that there was an online database.

After having only a very brief look at this database, I realised that this was definitely going to be the perfect location  to undertake my project.

There are hundreds of thousands of specimens that are available to study.

The point of contact on the website was a lady called Sally Thelwell.

I decided to take a trip to the museum to meet Sally and to discuss my idea with her.

Upon arriving at the museum, I was immediately impressed. The reception staff were incredibly friendly and helpful and the museum had a great atmosphere. this was an excellent first impression.

They directed me to the Collections Study Centre on the third floor and I met with Sally to explain my idea.

She was really friendly and very helpful.

After explaining my idea, she told me that the Museum does indeed have a huge collection of preserved insect specimens in what is called their "Entomology Collections Study Centre" which was run by a man by the name of Dmitri Logunov. 

Sally took my email address and said that she would pass my details on to Dmitri and ask him to get in touch with me about the possibility of me being able to see the insect collection.

By the time I had got home from Oxford Road and checked my email, Sally had already passed my details on to Dmitri and he had emailed me straight away asking when I would like to come to meet him.

This was incredible news and I was very excited!

  Fig-1

Figure-1. An absolutely beautiful display of insects currently being exhibited at the museum.