Archive catalogue (alphabetical card index)

An Alphabetical index of names is available for a great part of Collection “C-I” (fonds IDs MDK/MKCS/MKI/MI-C-I-1–229.). Cards are sorted alphabetically, and divided into drawers. The sorting order makes no difference between the short and long vowels of the Hungarian alphabet (e. g. a-á), and multiple-character consonants are sorted according to the second character of the letter (e. g. Corot→Csók→Cuyp→Czóbel, even though the „cs” in „Csók” is a separate letter that comes after „c” in the Hungarian alphabet). Each card features a person’s name and a call number that indicates which document in which archive unit the name can be found in. It consists of two parts: a fonds ID and an item number.

The fonds ID is made up of four parts, separated by hyphens:

1. the acronym of the institute’s name in Hungarian (MDK = Art Historical Documentation Centre; MKCS = Research Group of Art History; MKI = Research Institute of Art History),
2. the letter „C”, indicating the Archive in the Institute’s structure,
3. a roman numeral (I., II., or III.) to identify a sub-division of the Archive’s collection,
4. the number of the fonds.

These are followed by the item number, to which further numbers are sometimes appended (indicating a page etc.). So for example if the call number is „MDK-C-I-17/123 6”, then the name being researched can be found in Art historian Károly Lyka’s bequest (fonds ID: MDK-C-I-17), in document No. 123, on page 6.

Collections “C-II” and “C-III” consist of less extensive, numbered items, for which an Alphabetical index of names and subjects is available. On the cards, the collection sub-division’s ID („MDK/MKCS-C-II” or „MDK-C-III”) is directly followed by the item number.