Ways to contribute

There are many ways you can contribute to this site. You can share your treasures by submitting a description and photograph of your personal treasure, by adding comments to your own treasure and by passing on information about someone else’s treasure. But before you become an active participant, there are a few things you need to know…

Registering to contribute

To make a contribution, you must first register. You can register as an individual or on behalf of an organisation. In both cases you will need to provide your real name and an email address.

• As an individual
  Although you are required to provide your real name as part of the registration process, this information never appears on the website. For privacy and security reasons, we will only publish your contribution with the nickname you select for yourself. (For more information about how we safeguard your personal details, please read our Privacy Statement.)
  
  Before registering you will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions which govern the use of this site. You should read these carefully before proceeding with your registration.
  
  Once you have registered, you will receive an email containing instructions on how to confirm your registration. When your registration has been confirmed, you will be able to log in and start contributing!

• On behalf of an organisation, school or special interest group
  If you are registering on behalf of an organisation, school or special interest group, you will need to use your organisation name as your nickname, as well as supply your real name and the telephone number or postal address of your organisation. No contributions will be published on behalf of an organisation until we have verified that the person making the contribution is authorised to do so.

Contributing a treasure

Do you have a treasured object in your family – a keepsake that brings back memories? Perhaps you have a huge collection of a particular kind, or just a single item that you’ve kept just because you like its colour, shape or texture.

This website offers you the perfect opportunity to share your treasure with others by contributing a photo and a description of the object or a story about what it means to you. And remember, laws governing copyright mean that you must only use your own words and photographs. If you’re using other people’s you must ask their permission first. General introductory information about copyright in Australia is available on the Australian Copyright Council’s website.

We welcome any contributions as long as they don’t break our site rules. And if your treasure complements or relates to something in the Library’s collection, even better.

Perhaps you've already checked the Library’s catalogues to find out if we hold related or similar items, or maybe you've visited us to look for information about your object - its age, history, manufacture or value. If so, please share any information you've discovered by copying and pasting the relevant catalogue URL (website address) into the appropriate area of the contribution form.

We also ask you to choose the category your treasure best fits, and add some tags to help describe your contribution and allow people to find related items. (If you're not familiar with tags, please read the What are tags? page).

Once you’ve completed your contribution, you can review it, and then either save it as a draft or submit it for moderation. If you save your contribution as a draft, you’ll be able to make additional changes. If you submit it for review, you won’t be able to edit your contribution. For more information on making contributions, see the site rules and our step-by-step guides.

Adding a comment

You can also share information with others by commenting on someone else’s contribution. You may have information or know where people can get information about an item. Perhaps you simply want to say how much you enjoyed reading about a particular treasure, or that it has inspired you to contribute your own. It’s entirely up to you.

Please note

To contribute a treasure, or to comment on someone else’s treasure you must first log in using your email address and your password.

Moderating contributions

All contributions to the site are moderated. This means they are reviewed by a member of our staff to ensure they adhere to the site rules. The State Library of Victoria may choose not to publish your submission if we feel it does not comply with these rules. We also reserve the right to edit or modify any submissions where necessary. Once your contribution has been reviewed, we’ll email you to let you know that it has been published.

We’ll also email you if we decide to feature your contribution on the ‘Your Treasures’ homepage.