I decided that it was the high time to actually do something.
Yesterday I talked to my paleography professor and promised her the darn ms. IV.H.10 NKP (1). Well, manuscript. It's digitalized but the free version just shows that the scanned pages are. Since profesoressa apparently never heard about manuscriptorium.com, I guessed that no institution in this goddamn town offers the paid access.
I thus mailed to the guy who stands behind the digitalization thing in the National Library (I know many people, you know) and I got an automatic response that he's elsewhere until November 11. Fine, I thought, he'll read it when he's back, I'll be in Prague the 20-ish, the bills have to be done before the 30th, time enough, no need to bother the manuscriptorium guy.
I came back today, for a lunch or something, to find a mail from the grant office that everything that has an evidence number has to be in evidence before November 15 with all the due paperwork. I uttered something inpublicable a and mailed the manuscriptorium guy to pretty please manage somehow, mailed the grant guy asking what is the due paperwork and how to manage it logistically from abroad, then mailed the director of the university library and discovered that it's Friday lunchtime, everybody is thinking of their weekend but for me who goes to school on Sundays.
Speaking of libraries, the Central National Library of Florence gives me creeps. It's not a library, it's a Shrine of Knowledge. I read somewhere that it was one of the first buildings in modern architecture history that was actually built as a public library. So, there are columns, various statues - I'll check for Muses and other paraphernalia when I feel like it (2). The online catalog is however awful and I disliked it ever since.
I went there to get some stuff. Found that the National has common catalog with Marucelliana, Riccardiana and probably something else and that my books are in a great part in the other libraries. Been to Riccardiana with the abovementioned professor DeRobertis for an excursion years ago, been to Laurenziana in the same way. To see manuscripts, not to function normally. Eeeeek. (3)
Wanted to get my books present in the building. Found out that the library card is not enough, that I have to have an ID which I do not carry around, the hell, because in any library I've been to the library card is good enough since it's issued based on an ID.
Went home to get some lunch, my passport and my paleography notes (have a class later).
Checked mail and started panicking due to the digital copy deadline.
On the bus, I knitted. I took my grey sweater with me, the lecture on Neoplatonism demonstrated in ...........................and now what's the name of the guy we've been discussing since the beginning of October? The burial chapel of cardinal Prince of Portugal, the hell. Why the name of Baccio Bandinelli appears in my head when it's someone who lived later and elsewhere? Bernardo Rosellino, heureca. Well, the lectures are tough and complicated and knitting keeps me awake. And, I need my 5mm needles to start the sweater for Susan i want to get done before I leave. so, I knitted and found out why la Nazionale irks me so much. They use OPAC as their cataloging software. I hate it. All normal libraries elsewhere use Aleph. I'll ask some librarian to explain the difference since I get only the irk factor of it.
Off to my pea soup, post office, paleography, library, early death of exhaustion and some food shopping.-----------------------------------
(1) ms. means manuscript. NKP stands for National Library in Prague. The rest is the shelf mark. Nerdy thing, no need to worry.
(2) When I'm not pissed at them.
(3) Social phobia, remember?
