The proposed Tamworth Regional Museums Collection Policy has been brought in to guide the collection, loans and deaccessions to ensure every item helps tell the true story of Tamworth.

The policy has been in the works for almost a year and has involved consultation with volunteers at museums across the region, Tamworth Regional Gallery and Museums director Bridget Guthrie said.

"This is really important because not only does it help provide that forward-planning and that guiding direction, but it allows us to look at the resources we might need to support our collections," she said.

"It helps guide those collections that we had ad-hoc collected and there was no real plan for.

"It's the foundation for telling the story of Tamworth as the city of light, of music, our mining and mineral history and our cultural identity in film photography and sound."

The collection policy is currently on public exhibition for 28 days, and once adopted by TRC it will be reviewed every five years to ensure it meets international and national standards.

A number of the council's collections did not sit under any collection policy, including the Walk A Country Mile exhibits at the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame and the Chris Bowman Minerals and Fossil Collection.

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It's about enhancing how teams care for collections, Ms Guthrie said.

"It means if someone comes up to a museum and offers an object that is irrelevant, for example it doesn't tell the story of Tamworth as the first city of light, our volunteers can say that it doesn't fit the criteria," she said.

"You can't collect everything and even though we appreciate it when cultural gifts come in, we can't take a book from a property owner in Dubbo with no connection to Tamworth and we shouldn't be collecting that.

"When people come to Tamworth we want them to see our cultural identity, to showcase our uniqueness and what we are good at and this allows us to do that."