Meet VC | About the Victorian Collections CMS

The Victorian Collections team recently ran for the first time an annual online free information session, ‘Meet VC’, specifically developed for organisations who are considering using Victorian Collections (VC).

The session ran for 40 minutes and included an overview of the program, a top-level look behind the scenes at the VC Collection Management System (CMS), and highlighted key aspects of the system and Program which are important for organisations seeking to understand Victorian Collections prior to submitting an application. 

Below is a recording of the March 18 2026 session of 'Meet VC'. This recording represents the VC CMS at the time of delivery and there may be system changes or additions since the time of this presentation which will be reflected in the next session. 

The next live session of 'Meet VC' will be delivered in early 2027, with bookings opening in early February via the AMaGA Victoria website. In addition to the presentation, the live session will include dedicated question time. 

Below is a selection of questions received at the live information session.

If you have specific questions which were not answered by either the recording or the selected questions below, we recommend attending the next live session to participate in the Q&A. Alternatively, the answers to many questions are available to explore via Victorian Collections’ Knowledge Base, and interested organisations can also send enquiries to the Victorian Collections team by submitting a new ticket to our Helpdesk.

If your organisation would like to manage your collections using the Victorian Collections CMS, follow this link to learn about eligibility and how to become a contributor. 

For general information and guidance on cataloguing collections, download a copy of the Small Museums Cataloguing Manual. 

QUESTIONS ARISING FROM PAST INFORMATION SESSIONS

• Can we directly manage and add new cataloguers for our organisation if we are using Victorian Collections, or do we need to ask the Victorian Collections team to add a new cataloguer for us?

  When the VC team processes your application, we set up the person who submitted the application as the first user with full administrative permissions. This means that first user can add and manage new cataloguing members, including members with the same full administrative permissions if appropriate.

  After this first user is set up, and ongoing, organisations that use Victorian Collections directly invite and manage the permissions for cataloguers working with their collection.

  Head here to learn more about Adding, Updating, and Removing members for your VC Catalogue.  

• Does Victorian Collections integrate with other collection management systems?

  Victorian Collections does not integrate with other collection management systems, as VC is its own self-contained system. Where an organisation has a primary collection management system they intend to continue using, but would like to use Victorian Collections for public sharing of some or all items from the collection, these items must also be added to Victorian Collections. Any changes that might need to be made to the information about an item would, ongoing, need to be updated in both places. 

  Victorian Collections can integrate with the National Library of Australia’s Trove platform, as Victorian Collections – in addition to many other CMS platforms - is a compatible system for Trove. The difference with Trove, when compared with other platforms, is that Trove is not a CMS and rather it is a surfacing platform which harvests public collection data to also share via Trove, where can organisation has a Trove Partner Agreement in place with the National Library of Australia. 

  Head here to learn more about sharing with Trove through Victorian Collections.

• If we use the VC CMS, can we display the records we catalogue on our own website, in addition to the Victorian Collections public website?

  Yes! Victorian Collections offers an API, where organisations can surface a search and display of their publicly shared collection records on the Victorian Collections website, to a page on their own website. 
  

  To make use of the Victorian Collections API, you will need access to your own web developer to implement the API on your own website. Depending on the resources and expertise available to you, this may come at a cost for your organisation.  
  
  Head here to learn more about the Victorian Collections API.  

• Does Victorian Collections have any rules or requirements on the quality of images uploaded?

  No, Victorian Collections does not have any specification requirements for the quality or size of images uploaded to the VC CMS. However, we do provide lots of resources around recommended standards, as well as offer training and tools that help organisations take the best possible images within the resources available to them. 

  Head here to learn more about collection digitisation, or keep an eye out for our Digitisation Fundamentals workshop via the AMaGA Victoria’s Events page.