Library Differences

I must admit that I have been spoiled.  I cannot use the libraries here in Hungary in the same way as at home.  It has been a learning experience.

At home, I have access to hundreds of online databases.  I can listen to music (NAXOS, DRAM, Alexander Street Music). I can access countless sources through Oxford Music Online, JSTOR, RILM, RIPM, Music Index, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.  When I go to the library, I can look at almost all of the books in person.  As a graduate student, I can check books out for 1 year and media for 1 month.  For the books which I cannot check out, I am able to scan the crucial passages or copy them at the copy machine.

Since I am no longer enrolled in school at home, I have lost all of my library privileges.  I can no longer access any of the online material.  This has been a change because the libraries here do not subscribe to any of the databases I can access at home. At the National Library, the books are kept in a separate storage area.  I cannot browse the materials nor check them out.  Every item (except basic reference) must be requested. One of the issues I have had so far is that there is a limited amount of space where one can access wifi in the library.  It is not in the Music Collection.  So, I've been searching the internet like mad at our apartment to make lists of everything I need at the library.  Even this is not inclusive.  The journals, magazines and newspapers that I need either do not have a searchable database or they are only searchable by title and/or author.  Unfortunately, articles which discuss Hidas do not all have his name in the title. The task at hand is to flip through every journal and newspaper necessary to find all of the information I need.

The good news is that there is information out there and I will find it.  It will be tedious but extremely rewarding.  Some of these parts of the research are not glamorous but they are the most educational.