It is a research institution specialized in collecting and filing data about the city’s history that belongs to the Municipality of Thessaloniki. It is a three-storey building with an exhibition hall with special arrays and stands at the ground floor, administration offices at the first floor, a historic library at the second floor, as well as a modern venue of 150 seats with a machine translation system at the third floor. The library is visited frequently by researchers of Thessaloniki’s history, who are allowed access to the Municipal Archives, private documents, photos, postal cards, maps and video-tapes about the city’s history. The institution also attracts foreign researchers and students from Secondary and High Schools, while it often exhibits historic documents and publishes material necessary to cover the blanks of Thessaloniki’s history.
