Since 1952, lectures held by Nobel Laureates at the Lindau Meetings have been recorded. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) called this archive a “digital treasure trove”, and so the Council and Foundation for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings in 2009 started the ambitious project of making the material freely available online. With the support of the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung, a first prototype was built and the preparatory editorial work began. Anders Bárány, former deputy director of the Nobel Museum and secretary to the Nobel committee in physics, took over the position as chief scientific editor.

The project evolved into a very complex task: More than 800 recordings had to be reviewed, and the most attractive ones had to be selected. Yet, many of the original lectures were hard to understand without the appropriate context, and thus abstracts and comments were added. As information on the laureates themselves was also needed, CVs for all laureates covered in the Mediatheque were added subsequently. Technical requirements grew along the way, so the prototype was developed into version 1.0, released in 2011.

To date, more than 350 video lectures, about 400 abstracts and almost 300 CVs covering more than 440 Laureates and 69 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings are available online.

The work of publishing historical lectures together with CVs, photos, abstracts and comments still continues – the first milestone of 400 historical lectures is within reach. In addition, more material has been developed for the Mediatheque in order not only to offer loosely connected fragments but to establish a context that allows understanding.

• Translations (German/English) are being added to many lectures.
• Topic Clusters put selected lectures into a topical framework and show the development of research over decades.
• Research profiles provide in-depth background information covering a Laureate’s scientific work.
• Mini Lectures condense content into a short video suitable for younger viewers (age 16-18).

To accommodate the need for a user-friendly presentation of this wealth of material, the next version (2.0) of the Mediatheque has been released in time for the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (2014). This technical upgrade, which includes responsive design for all kinds of devices, goes together with several new types of content:

• inclusion of the visually stunning Nobel Labs 360°
• soon-to-come new component “Penzias Painting”
• exhibitions, publications, etc.

The current Mediatheque project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung. Additional funds have been provided by the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung and the International Lake Constance Conference (IBK). Due to the support of the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) it was also possible to make the earliest recordings available in the mediatheque.

The Lindau Meetings cooperate with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in the production of research profiles and the Penzias Panting’s life paths.

The Lindau Meetings cooperate with the Institut für Schulqualität und Bildungsforschung (ISB) to make the Mediatheque content available to schools in Bavaria via the „mebis“ platform.

Editor-at-Large and Scientific Advisor
Prof. Anders Bárány

Managing Editor & Project Manager
Wolfgang Huang

Senior Editor
Dr. Patricia Edema

Senior Authors
Dr. Luisa Bonolis, Dr. Patricia Edema, Ben Johnson, Dr. Roberto Lalli, Joachim Pietzsch, Dr. David Siegel