Other People's Archives

From reading this blog, you might think that the path of the researcher working in a foreign land is relatively smooth and easy. One goes to the library or archive, orders and usually receives materials, and settles happily down to work (as a rule, near an electrical outlet and with sufficient light).
I would not like to mislead you. For some reason I have been unnaturally fortunate, or perhaps merely lazy in my investigation of diverse archives.
To get a fuller sense of what can happen, I direct you to:

Jesse's account of the Janáček archive;
closure of library for technical reasons.
Kristen on getting access in the first place;
inaccessibility of periodicals;
archive blindness;
it's Tuesday, therefore...
paperwork and fees;
only one book is available.

So... all I can say is that if you want an easy time researching, choose a Czech author or someone who corresponded with Czech authors, and stick to people who have been dead for at least 25-30 years. Try to do something that will benefit from plenty of periodicals research and does not rely solely on handwritten materials.

Filed under:
Prague Czech research blogs