Book excerpt: In the summer of 2006, the 5th International Symposium on Middle Ear Mechanics in Research and Otology was held at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. More than 250 participants from 33 countries in all five continents came together to present their most current research results, exchange their knowledge in practical applications, to discuss open questions and discover new unsolved problems.This book includes representative, peer-reviewed articles of the lectures and papers presented during the symposium, and thereby gives an overview of the ongoing research and current knowledge in the function and mechanics of the normal, diseased and reconstructed middle ear. It covers basic research, engineering and clinical aspects of evaluation, diagnosis and surgery of the middle ear as well as implantable hearing devices in a very broad and interdisciplinary way. Following the tradition of the organizers of the previous conferences to collect the contributions of the symposium, this volume further initialized and promotes many fruitful discussions on middle ear mechanics with different points of view.