In October and November we ran our annual Vernon CMS user group meetings. For the first meeting we used the excellent conference room facilities at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart. We had 22 attendees from sites across Australia.

October will be a busy month for Vernon Systems staff. We’re releasing version 11 of Vernon CMS later in the month. Paul and Leisa will be showing this off in Hobart at our annual Australian user group meeting. Paul, Kate and Cherry then head to Christchurch for our South Island user group meeting.

This newsletter includes articles on Auckland Museum’s use of the Topic file, Nelson Provincial Museum’s collection website comments feature, Farnsworth Art Gallery’s new online collection microsite, cataloguing a smartphone app, Gold Coast City Gallery’s use of Vernon CMS, and the results of our 2017 museum survey.

This issue of Collection Connection profiles some of the recent online collection microsites we have worked on, recaps Alex von der Becke’s visit to our head office, includes Leisa’s thoughts on the MuseumNext conference, and a has list of our upcoming conference events.

This quarter’s newsletter profiles Vernon CMS version 10, highlights the recent National Digital Forum conference and Vernon User Group meetings, and provides some useful tips for searching in Vernon CMS.