The museum traces its history back to the establishment of the National Museum of Victoria in 1854 under the directorship of Frederick McCoy. The Library, Museums and National Gallery Act 1869 incorporated the Museums with the Public Library and the National Gallery of Victoria; but this administrative connection was severed in 1944 when the Public Library, National Gallery and Museums Act came into force, and they became three separate institutions once again. Museums Victoria was founded in its current form under the Australian Museums Act. Currently, Museums Victoria's State Collections holds over 17 million items, including objects relating to Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander cultures, geology, historical studies, palaeontology, technology & society, and zoology Museums Victoria also contains a library collection that holds some of Australia’s rarest and finest examples of 18th and 19th century scientific monographs and serials. Significant events in the Museum's history include:
1998 – Museum of Victoria renamed Museum Victoria; Immigration Museum and Hellenic Antiquities Museum opened
2000 – Melbourne Museum at Carlton Gardens opened
2016 – Museum Victoria renamed Museums Victoria
Administration
The present chief executive officer of Museums Victoria is Lynley Crosswell, who was previously the head of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s international arm. Crosswell is the first woman to lead the organisation in its history. Former directors include:
The Museums Victoria Library collection was first established in the 1850s as a working collection for the Museum's curators, and has developed into one of the best collections of natural history books and journals in Australia. The library was located at Melbourne University until 1906 when it moved, with the museum, to be co-located with the Public Library. Today, the library collection is located at Melbourne Museum and contains 40,000 titles, which includes around 1,000 titles that are considered to be rare due to one or a combination of factors, including: value; scarcity; aesthetic qualities; historic, scientific or institutional significance; fragility; or age. Collection strengths include natural history in the fields of zoology, geology and palaeontology, scientific expedition reports, society and institutional journal titles, Indigenous cultures of Australia and the Pacific, Australian history, technology, colonial and other exhibition catalogues, museum studies, and Museums Victoria publications. Many items from the Museums Victoria Library have been digitised for the Biodiversity Heritage Library as Museums Victoria is the home to the Australian node of this project. The digitisation operation is hosted by Museums Victoria and is nationally funded by the Atlas of Living Australia.
