• Public access
  
  Among Germany's museum libraries, the Information Centre with its collection of media resources is distinctive. It sees itself as a service for in-house and outside users. The media resources can be viewed in four media carrels.
  
  In the Information Centre, visitors have direct access to over 3,700 audiovisual resources (as of August 2007) on political, economic, social, cultural and "everyday" history from 1945 to the present. About 820 of the just under 61,000 books in the collection deal with the subject of "radio and television". Important periodicals on this subject are also available.
  
  Research in the holdings of the Information Centre
  (in German only):
  
  • Library and Mediathek on Contemporary German history
  • Library on the History of the GDR
  
  

  Tel.: +49 (0)228 9165-236
  Fax: +49 (0)228 9165-302
  E-Mail: iz@hdg.de
  
  

• Media resources
  
  The Multimedia Resource Centre has developed, for new acquisitions, collecting focal points in line with the Museum's objectives.
  
  Audiovisual media on personalities from the sectors of politics, business and culture focus on contemporary witnesses of special significance for museological work, as for example the Günter Gaus television interview series "Zur Person", and "Im Gespräch" with Ernst Elitz.
  
  The Multimedia Resource Centre also collects programmes of contemporary historical relevance that are aired within the German transmission range:
  
  
  • These include the newscasts "Tageschau mit Wochenspiegel" "Tagesschau vor 20 Jahren" and the current "Heute" telecasts. These programmes form the nucleus of a documentary news collection that is in the process of development.
    
    
  • Features and documentaries are archived and information is retrievably stored in the database. The records, presently nearly 31,100 (as of August 2007), form a unique media pool of contemporary German history. The data are also accessible to outside users on request, and it is planned to put them on the Internet via the online-database "Suche in den Sammlungen / Search the Collections". Accessing will depend on rights.
    
    

  A theme-based approach is offered by the 500 tapes of the WDR radio series "Zeitzeichen" and by a great number of original audio recordings of contemporary history.
  
  Cinema and television commercials offer a look at the history of German product merchandising and commerce.
  
  Typically museological media resources include the record collection and educational films from the GDR.
  
  The Multimedia Resource Centre also documents all Museum-produced audiovisual media used in the exhibitions. All exhibition media resources are thus on record and their use can be traced.
  
  

  Contact: Ulrike Krüsmann
  Tel: +49 (0)228 9165-505
  Fax: +49 (0)228 9165-555
  

• Special features
  
  The Information Centre offers visitors access on terminals to special information: this includes the presentations of various news agencies - in particular the dpa newscast - all Bundestag election results since 1949, and the (GDR) Volkskammer election returns of 1990, plus biographies of all elected representatives. The Internet presentation of the Museum of Contemporary History can also be accessed in the Information Centre. The "Book of Fame", an interactive multimedia station, features brief video sequences on the professional and social activity of well-known personalities in the world of German business during the second half of the 20th century.

In its permanent exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary History shows German history from the end of the Second World War up to the present. The exhibition has an experience-focus and is visitor-friendly in conception and presentation. Media resources are an important instrument here.

Right in the foyer, visitors get daily updates on the various Museum features on offer. Before touring the permanent exhibition, they can experience in multivision "Ein Tag in Deutschland - Spuren durch die Geschichte" ("A Day in Germany - Traces of History"), a lively approach to the themes of the exhibition. In the permanent exhibition itself, there are 114 media stations for visitors' use. At the end of the tour, a monitor displays newsflashes from a major German news agency. As they leave the exhibition halls, visitors' attention is caught by the video panorama screen with its 96 cubes alternately showing video art and a Museum presentation on "Zukunft in unserer Verantwortung" ("The Future in Our Hands").

The use of audiovisual media in the permanent exhibition is based on a three-tier media design:

• On the first information level, continuously running monitors (plus a continuous sound-track) provide the visitor with general information. This includes selectable trailers on touchscreen monitors and sensor-controlled facilities that are automatically activated on contact or approach.
  
  
• On the second (in-depth) information level, visitors can select audio and film features on numerous stations. They choose the topics and the focal points themselves.
  
  
• On the third information level (greater depth and more detail) visitors can access interactively - individually or in groups - large clusters of data and informative material. Opportunities to look back, to compare, to make connections, are offered here.
  
  

Visitor acceptance ratings on the audiovisual resources are high to very high.

The use of media resources in the temporary exhibitions follows the same museum-education principles.

In June 1997 the Museum of Contemporary History also put out the CD-ROM "Erlebnis Geschichte - Deutschland seit 1945" ("Experiencing History - Germany Since 1945") reflecting the basic principles of the permanent exhibition.

Since May 2000, Web site visitors have been able to explore the Museum and the permanent exhibition on a virtual tour.

With the Live Virtual Museum Online (LeMO), the Museum of Contemporary History presents on the Internet a multimedia information resource on German history from 1900 to the present. LeMO is a joint project of the Museum of Contemporary History, the German Historical Museum and the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering. For the virtual tour of the 20th century, 3D animations (VRML) and film and sound documents are combined with the museum collections and informational texts (HTML), forming together a comprehensive historical panorama. The LeMO archive provides a survey of all films and sound documents used in LeMO.

The virtual exhibition Movie hits in Germany. 50 years of German cinema history in movie posters in the Haus der Geschichte collection invites you to tour the history of the cinema and of its box-office successes in East and West Germany. It impressively and convincingly illustrates the contrasting interpretation of identical events in West and East, and shows how various "nights at the movies" were experienced and discussed. The film-posters of the annual box-office winners provide an exciting glimpse of all-German cultural history from 1949 to 1998.

© 2002-2008 Netzwerk Mediatheken / Network of Multimedia Resource Centres