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(photo from ICD-HtESSh)
the Reorientation Branch, Civil Affairs
Division, War Department Special
Staff, through channels provided by
the MG authorities. Thus far a total
of 48 US Information Centers have
been established in occupied areas,
and with the British, American Mili-
tary Government shares responsibility
for servicing the Allied Information
Center in Trieste. Eight of the 20 cen-
ters in Germany, the three Austrian
centers (Vienna, Linz, and Salzburg),
the American collection in Trieste,
and the center in Tokyo were ex-
panded from American libraries foun-
ded by US Information Service and
operated by the Department of State
pior to I July 1946.
Each of the centers in Germany,
along with the others, will soon re-
ceive a basic collection of approximate-
ly 7,000 volumes and 100 additional
current periodicals. Specialists in
many fields were consulted as to
which titles would prove most help-
ful in ending intellectual and cultural
isolation within the occupied coun-
tries, principally by providing the best
Americana available. These basic col-
Reading room of a US Information Center. Especially popular are the current
periodicals from the United States. Each Center has available about 100 current
magazines ranging from fashion periodicals to technical medical journals.
lections, common to all centers, are
extensively supplemented by special
collections for centers with special in-
terests. Agricultural books and period-
icals, for example, are being pro-
vided the centers at Giessen, Munich,
and Stuttgart.
N Germany the 20 US Information
Centers are a functional part of the
Information Control Division, Exhibi-
tions, and Information Centers Branch.
Independence Day 1945 marked the
opening of the first center, located
then in Bad Homburg. In September
of that year the approximately 700
volumes were moved to a single room
inFrankfurt. As more and more German
intellectuals, newspapermen, teach-
ers, and students discovered and
made use of this bridge to the outside
world, the space quickly became
inadequate and in May 1946 the
Frankfurt Center opened in larger
quarters. This collection of materials
which has served as many as 1,300
persons weekly, now comprises more
than 5,000 volumes, 200 periodicals,
and 18 newspapers,
The steady growth of the centers is
now a matter of history. The 20 cen-
ters - located at Berlin, Frankfurt,
Munich, Stuttgart, Bremen, Marburg,
Heidelberg,  Erlangen,  Wuerzburg,
Kassel, Nuremberg, Wiesbaden, Re-
gensburg, Augsburg, Ulm, Darmstadt,
Bamberg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, and
Giessen - now contain more than
90,000 volumes. These were obtained
largely from Army surplus stocks.
As more materials became available
during the past year and circulation
was possible, reading rooms were
established by smaller municipalities,
particularly  throughout  Wuerttem-
berg-Baden, and in Bavaria extensive
loans were made to GYA officials, In
Hesse, the resources of the centers
were made available on loan to the
various Teacher Training Institutes.
All centers cooperate with the Text-
(Continued to page 11)
WEEKLY INFORMATION BULLETIN
7 JULY 1947
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