[Proceedings of the VII international symposium 'Cultural heritage in geosciences, mining and metallurgy : libraries, archives, museums' : "Museums and their collections" held at the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Leiden (The Netherlands), 19-23 May, 2003 / Cor F. Winkler Prins and Stephen K. Donovan (editors)]: Landesmuseum Karnten - the Collections of Natural Sciences

Public museums collections had a hard start in Carinthia: only in 1848 did the first Museum of Natural Sciences open, maintained by the 'Naturhistorischer Verein für Kärnten'. For a long time the collections were based on private donations. In 1884, the 'Naturhistorischer Verein' and the 'Geschichtsverein für Kärnten' moved into a new museum building, since 1898 there have been full-time curators. The museum's scientific publication was and still is the periodical Carinthia. In 1942, the collections became property of the Government, but since 1998 they have been privatized.