Comments: Research Opportunities
Technisches Museum Wien
The Technisches Museum Wien lies in Vienna, Austria, close to the Western main station, easily reachable by public transport on the Mariahilferstraße 212. For your physical visit as a researcher you are welcome to visit our permanent and special exhibitions as our library, archive and the Mediathek (media library). Our exhibitions are open from Monday to Sunday between 9am and 6pm. The library, archive and the Mediathek are also open to the public, but, once you visit, please check the restricted opening hours at the different websites (see below) first.
The museum was opened in May 1918 before the end of World War I. (The dates about the opening often differ in the literature: the decision to establish a technical museum in Vienna was already made in 1908, the construction of the building started in 1909 and was completed at the time war broke out. The first director was Ludwig Erhard.) To read more about the exciting history of the museum please get yourself the following book: 100 Jahre Technisches Museum Wien, edited by Helmut Lackner, Katharina Jesswein, Gabriele Zuna-Kratky, Vienna 2009 (448 pages, unfortunately only German).
Our website is both German and English: http://www.technischesmuseum.at/visitor-info/lang/en. If you click on section “collections and research” you will find brief descriptions of our collections, our archive, a selected choice of our most representative objects and an overview about current research projects. To get in contact with our scientific staff members please click on http://www.technischesmuseum.at/team/ to find the list of our staff or write to sammlungen@tmw.at.
Current long-term exhibits. Since reopening in 1999 the museum shows several permanent exhibitions, for example “Heavy Industry”, “Energy”, “media.world” and “Everyday Life”. The last one shows technologies about houses, household and human body. The so far exhibition about “Transport” will be redesigned under the title of “Mobility” till the end of 2014.
Collections. The museum started collecting in 1909, but the collections go back to the 17th and 18th century, since the museum overtook a few of the earlier empires collections. Several changes in the structure of the collection were done since the museum was founded. Today it is divided into 7 main groups: Basic Principles, Everday Life, Energy and Mining, Information and Communication, Production Technology, Musical Instruments, Transport and Mobility. About 12.000 objects are on display in our permanent exhibition, but the majority of the approx. 180.000 objects is located in two external storage buildings, which can be visited by researchers, but only by long-term appointment with one of our staff members.
Library. The library covers all subjects of technical, scientific and industrial history, with a strong regional focus and includes more than 100.000 volumes. You can use the very quiet and light reading room (see opening hours at http://www.technischesmuseum.at/language/en-us/home/sammlung-forschung/bibliothek), but you are not allowed to take the books with you. Please also visit the online catalogue of our library: http://webopac.technischesmuseum.at/index.asp?DB=web_biblio
Archive. You will be definitely surprised what our world-famous archive has to offer. Many researchers has already found unexpected things here. Please read the descriptions of the archive stock and then do not hesitate to contact us: http://www.technischesmuseum.at/collection-area/archivbestand; http://www.technischesmuseum.at/language/en-us/home/artikelansicht/articleid/1352/urlmaster/false. Please contact the archive in advance, if you want to avoid long waiting times, especially if you come from abroad.
Conservation. The conservation department of our museum serves as a research partner for other museums and universities. The conservation of industrial heritage, but also the preventive conservation of collections in store and on display is our main research field. A recent special area is the handling with hazardous substances. For further interest please contact: restaurierung@tmw.at
Mediathek. The Österreichische Mediathek is the national collecting point for sound recordings and videos. The stocks of the Österreichische Mediathek are available through multimedia online exhibitions on particular subjects (www.mediathek.at). The entire catalogue can be found on the Internet at http://www.katalog.mediathek.ac.at. In the Marchettischlössl, not far from the main building of the museum, multimedia PCs provide information about all of the collections and allow visitors to listen to media that has already been digitized.
Documentation. The quality in documentation is constantly increasing in the collection, the library, the archive and the Mediathek. A stock inventory in the collection storage started already in 2003 and is still going on. The level of documentation for our collections is almost 70 per cent. From 2015 on we will additionally offer the opportunity to any researcher to use our whole collection database on line for her or his research, free of charge and without registration! Actual are around 150.000 records. We will be delighted to receive feedback from any user and researcher to enrich the data and the knowledge about our collection.
Also available on line are about 160,000 photographs of the two photographers Artur Fenzlau and Erwin Jelinek about the history of motosport from the 1920s to the 1980s.
For general inquiries please contact: museumsbox@tmw.at