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Military government weekly information bulletin
Number 100 (July 1947)
US information centers, pp. 4-5
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Page 5
(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 5
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