Under the nineteenth century Hapsburg monarchy, the Natural History Museum in Vienna developed as the imperial repository for cosmopolitan research collections, and attracted important researchers. Because of World War I, the museum lost its imperial backing, a blow from which it never recovered. Today, as the result of many internal and external factors, the state of teh institution is far from being satisfactory. Some examples of these factors are: a lack of university education in systematics; staff selection by unqualified commissions; inappropriate administrative priorities; little effort by the museum to interest the public in its fields of research; little willingness to move into new research fields; and a lack of institutional commitment in matters of public concern.