Archive Bench

Old archives.
New lessons.

Archive Bench turns rights-verified public-domain material from museum and library collections into ready-to-use learning packs for education teams: the artifact, the activity, and the paperwork that proves you may use it.

Ready-made packs $9 each · custom museum pack $39 flatCustom pack: one artifact, a 4-page pack like the sample, and the rights paperwork.

matt@archivebench.com
Illustration of an archive bench with a specimen frame, pressed botanical leaf, old books and a magnifying glass

How it works

1

Rights first

Every pack starts from material with verified reuse rights. If the rights are not clear, the artifact does not go in.

2

An activity around the real thing

Observation prompts, response pages and facilitator notes built around the actual artifact, not a stock worksheet with a picture pasted on.

3

Documented, ready to use

Each pack ships with full source and rights documentation, so your team can show exactly where every image and fact came from.

What we will not do

No invented history. If a fact is not in the source, it is not in the pack. No fake restoration claims, no padded science, no material with murky rights. The documentation page is part of the product, not an afterthought.

What you can expect

A real look at the work before you send anything.

Sample pack, page 2 of 4

"Look closely": a family observation activity

A historic hand-colored illustration of a finch on a flowering branch, with a decorative border

Built around one historic natural-history illustration, for a small museum's family-learning table. The image is shown as the museum would receive it: full frame, binding edges and age marks left in, no retouching.

  • An observation sheet: find two shapes, two colors, one repeated pattern. How does the border differ from the bird?
  • A response sheet: what I can see, a detail worth drawing, and my question. Low ink, prints on any office printer.
  • A rights and production note: the Library of Congress record, what its rights statement says, what we changed (our prompts and layout, not the image), and the print specs.

Download the 4-page sample pack (PDF)

This is one sample pack, not a catalog of packs, and it has not been print-tested on a physical printer or tried with a museum educator yet. The Library of Congress record lists no known restrictions on publication, so the image is not exclusive to you. What you pay for is the activity and the paperwork, not exclusivity. Source: loc.gov/item/2014646350.

Ready-made packs are $9 each. A custom pack built for your museum is $39 flat: one artifact, a 4-page pack like the sample.

See a pack before deciding anything

We are a new bench, so look at the work first: our sample pack is a family observation activity built from a historic natural-history illustration, made with an independent museum education team in mind. We will send it free.

Ready-made packs $9 each · custom museum pack $39 flat, one revision round included.Fixed scope for a custom pack: one artifact, a 4-page pack like the sample, one revision, and the rights documentation.

Ask for the sample pack