About the Museums Office
The Museums Office of the Velocity Interoperability Network holds the national collections of the Velocity Interoperability Network in trust for its citizens, prepares the museums in which they will be shown, and provides exhibitions and a learning programme for the public while that work is under way.
The Office was established on 6 September 2026. During the four weeks before its establishment, fourteen member organisations transferred twenty-six separate collections, together amounting to 128,400 objects and specimens, together with the buildings at six principal sites in which the collections are stored and will be displayed. The collections are arranged in seven divisions and are being catalogued and conserved ahead of the opening of the museums; the position at establishment is recorded in the first register of the collections, published on the day the Office was established.
None of the museums is yet open. The National Study Centre at Westbrook opens on 18 January 2027, the first of the museums, the Museum of the Network, on 3 May 2027, and the remaining museums between September 2027 and September 2028; the full programme is set out on the Our Museums page. Until the museums open, the Office shows objects from the collections in travelling exhibitions at Network sites and makes them available for study.
Responsibilities. The work of the Office falls into six areas.
- The national collections
- The care, cataloguing and conservation of the 128,400 objects and specimens transferred to the Office, and publication of the register of what it holds.
- Museums in preparation
- Five national museums and the National Study Centre, opening between January 2027 and September 2028 at the principal sites of the Network.
- Exhibitions
- Travelling exhibitions at Network sites before the first museum opens, and the exhibition programme of each museum thereafter.
- Learning
- Loan boxes and taught sessions for schools, preparation days for teachers, a public lecture series, family sessions, conservation traineeships and volunteering.
- Access and research
- Study rooms in which objects not on display may be consulted from January 2027, and the lending of objects to exhibitions elsewhere in the Network.
- Statistics and reporting
- Quarterly figures on cataloguing, conservation, exhibitions and the learning programme, and quarterly reissues of the collections register.
The Office employed 61 staff at establishment: cataloguers, conservators, education staff, exhibition preparers and registry staff, most of whom transferred with the collections from member organisations. Its quarters are at the National Study Centre, Westbrook, where the reserve collections, the conservation studios and the study rooms are being fitted out ahead of the opening in January 2027.
For the origins of the Office and the milestones since its establishment, see History; for figures on its work, see Statistics. General enquiries may be sent to contact@museums.gov.vin.