In secured stores and fire-proof archives all over the country are a treasure trove of historical sources of which (gloved) academics have barely touched the surface. I am one of the lucky ones, and through a number of small projects, I have enjoyed opportunities to delve into museums stores and conduct research into this astounding national resource. Through my MA dissertation and a paid internship with the National Maritime Museum (NMM) I looked at sections of Submarine Telegraph cables. This not only took me into the NMM’s stores but lead me to the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum in Cornwall, the Science Museum in South Kensington and the Freemason’s Museum in central London. I have now embarked on a collaborative doctoral award with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) and the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and am excited about the avenues the archives and collections of the BPMA may take me in the coming years. Though history and heritage are passions of both museums and university history departments, working with the two institutions require different skills and they can often expect different behaviours from their researchers. In this short paper I will look at the benefits and challenges I have experienced in these collaborative projects, arguing that there is a great deal of potential benefit to the students as well as to museums and academic scholarship.