Research

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Plan your visit The MOT, one museum, three locations:

Mission The MOT’s aim is to help understanding of the past and present of humanity, here and elsewhere, by giving a realistic picture of the origin and evolution of techniques and of their impact on everyday life and on the environment.  The underlying vision Past and present The MOT studies ‘older’ techniques, that is to say, not only the techniques of the past, but also those of today. Man is continually thinking up new tools. The latest form of tools also have their place in our collection, which is unique in that respect. Here and elsewhere The Museum wants to study the techniques not only of this region, this country, or this culture. We deliberately work at an international and intercultural level to be able to give a global picture of the wealth of techniques in different cultures. By learning to know, compare and understand the techniques of others, we help to put cultural differences in relation to each other.  The techniques Like some other institutions, the MOT has the task...

The MOT library As well as technical objects, the MOT also systematically collects documentation in its own scientific library. Our library now contains around 40,000 books, journals, articles, and CD-ROMs, and is being added to further all the time. It is one of the richest collections of technical books in the country. All titles of both books and articles are systematically indexed by keyword. We keep numerous old and recent manuals from every possible trade and sector. We also have thousands of historical books and journals about the history of technology, and a range of technical encyclopaedias, containing valuable pictorial material. The library also contains technical and historical dictionaries. Our extensive collection of trade catalogues allows you to find out about the appearance, material, price or brand of all kinds of goods. You can consult much of it online here. If you would like to use our library you will find full details on the next page.

Museum team 

What? RCB stands for the Repertorium van de Belgische Handelscatalogi (Directory of Belgian Trade Catalogues). It is an online aid to trace trade catalogues published in Belgium before c. 1950, in public collections. The RCB has search entries via title, company name, town, period, year of publication, RCB code and keyword.