The TWL was proposed by the engineer Oskar Lasche , director of the AEG Turbinenfabrik, and began its work as part of the "Deutsche Verband Technisch-Wissenschaftlicher Vereine" (German Association of Technical and Scientific Societies) in January 1922. Its main task was to facilitate and create exemplary teaching aids for engineering education. The TWL merged in 1932 with the "Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen" (German Committee for the Technical School System, DATSCH) and seemed to exist still in the fifties after which it was liquidated.

The tasks of the TWL were centralization, rationalization, and organization of the creation and use of media for engineering education. The TWL collected photos and lent them out. The size of the collection grew from about 1700 in 1923 to about 7 000 in 1926 and to about 12 000 in 1927. Ideas grew to collect also critical reports of scholars and experts to cope with information overload. The TWL issued first German translations of the Decimal Classification as little leaflets, beginning with the section 62 (Engineering Sciences).