MELBOURNE, Australia, 7 June 2023—Museums Victoria, Australia's largest public museums organisation, has signed on to use OCLC's WorldShare Management Services (WMS) as their new library management system to integrate workflows and increase visibility and access to resources.

Museums Victoria operates three state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, and Scienceworks. The collection consists of over 15 million items and is an invaluable record of Victoria's environmental and cultural history. The Museums Victoria Library reflects the collecting areas of the museum since its foundation in 1854, and supports the current research needs of museum staff.

"We selected WMS so we would be connected to a global library community through OCLC. This will allow us to stay on top of the latest developments in the library sector, such as RDA, BIBFRAME and diversity and inclusion initiatives." said Hayley Webster, Manager, Library.

"WMS offers a good balance of up-to-date technology, user-friendly workflows, and the confidence of being with an innovative, library-centred organisation," Webster continued. "We believe the system is well-suited to a museum and special library context, as it offers all the benefits of a new generation library management system but can also be pared-back to suit the more traditional aspects of our service and the smaller scale of our collection."

Webster added, "With the change to WMS, Museums Victoria Library is excited to be making its online library catalogue publicly accessible for the first time."

"The Museums Victoria Library is still predominantly a print-based collection, however in recent years we have been moving towards electronic delivery of information where possible. WMS has allowed us to better integrate e-resources into our online catalogue, improving the experience for our end users. The ability to track e-resource use centrally will simplify reporting and save us time," said Webster.

WMS, a cloud-based library services platform, provides users with fast, reliable access to the library's collections and a worldwide network of knowledge. With WorldCat data as its foundation, libraries using WMS experience improved workflows and a streamline of routine tasks, including e-resource management and cataloguing.

"Museums Victoria Library offers a valuable collection reflective of Victoria's rich cultural history," said Eric van Lubeek, Vice President and Managing Director, OCLC EMEA & APAC. "We're delighted to welcome Museums Victoria to the WorldShare community. We're confident that WMS will increase the visibility and access to the Museums Victoria Library's rich collection, which will benefit libraries and researchers around the world."