Mag. Ronald Lintner
Office of the Lower Austrian Federal Government, Department of Art and Culture
A-3109 St. Pölten, Landhausplatz 1
Mag. Christian Dietrich, deputy collection manager
Andreas Geringer, depot administrator, photo documentation, transport
Gerhard Ploiner, transport
The Landesmuseum Niederösterreich has been collecting objects from natural history since 1911. Its first holdings were listed in an inventory register in 1915. The collection partly owes its diversity to the fact that the collection managers also supervised the former satellite institutions known as the Afrikamuseum (African Museum) in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and Marchegg; the Jagdmuseum (Hunting Museum) in Marchegg, and the Donau- und Fischereimuseum (Danube and Fisheries Museums) in Petronell and Orth an der Donau, respectively.
THE FOCUS OF THE COLLECTION
The Nature Studies department of the State Collections of Lower Austria is very diverse and currently comprises some 80,000 botanical, earth science and zoological objects, as well as cultural and historical exhibits.
Entomology, the study of insects, is an important focus of the collection. About 3,800 insect displays (approx. 500,000 specimens) are housed in the depot.
Another major point of emphasis is the department’s comprehensive collection of vertebrates (Vertebrata), especially birds (Aves), many of which are of great historical interest. The department also holds a significant archive of historical photographs; it was started by Günther Schlesinger in the 1930s and later continued by Lothar Machura and Augustin Meisinger.
A specialised library has been compiled to reflect the research fields.
The department of natural history has published a number of periodical scholarly journals:
- Publication series “Naturkundliche Mitteilungen aus den Landessammlungen Niederösterreich” [Natural history journals from the State Collections of Lower Austria] (formerly “Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus dem Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseum” [Scholarly journals from the Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum])
- Exhibition brochures and catalogues