Plainchant from Hungary began to be transcribed systematically into modern notation after 1970, in line with the plans for the Melodiarium Hungariae Medii Aevi series and in preparation for the medieval volume of The Music History of Hungary.

The first phase called for record cards for source-based melodic transcription, showing the source, feast, index number and registration number of each item. With publication in mind, the transcriptions underwent several correction phases, some corrections being made by Benjamin Rajeczky.

At the same time, the collection intentionally “conserved” the antiphon records of the single codices: from the record cards copies, there was also compiled the complete antiphon repertory of the individual sources.

The express aim was publication with the comparative melodic transcriptions, which recorded the musical variants of each melody.

The typed catalogue could cover a volume (some 20,000 melodies) that was huge for the pre-computer period. It allowed the items to be viewed by registration number, feast, source or alphabetical order.

Based on the initial work by Rajeczky, the grouping of the antiphon melodies by musical type was accomplished according to a scheme devised by Janka Szendrei and László Dobszay. The ordered material contains all former record cards, is available also as a computer database, and can be expanded at will. The publication of the antiphon volume of Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi and the computerized musical transcription did not supplant the melody collection, as they included only the melodies of the Esztergom and Hungarian Franciscan traditions. The remainder ‒ the other sources from Hungary and the comparative antiphon material from abroad ‒ do not appear.

A strong chance of digitizing source research opened up for the Department in 1997. Starting to do so was a joint idea in the Department; setting it up and devising the methods for it were the work of Gábor Kiss, who has continued to direct the working group and supervise the Digital Source Collection.

Methods and practice of digitization were still not widespread at that time. The threefold aim of conserving the cultural heritage, easing research into it, and making it more accessible were clear, but it was not clear how to implement it. One possibility was direct digital photography of the libraries, but this was very costly and dependent on obtaining agreement from each library, calling for unforeseeable amounts of travel, as many surviving medieval Hungarian sources were held abroad. So the solution seemed to lie in digitizing the Department’s rich microfilm collection.

The other decisive question was whether to give the work out on commission or try to build up a workshop for film digitization within the Institute. Eventually the second course was chosen, and the studio infrastructure and digitization methods were devised over the following years.

Use of microfilm is a compromise in preservation terms, but it had practical advantages: the digitization could occur in bulk at a single site, and it made it far easier to utilize the material chosen for research.

Other major advantages are the flexibility of digital technology and multiplicity of uses to which a digitalized image can be put. Photographs of initially variable quality can be improved to clarify details important to research; physically damaged or fragmented material can be restored virtually, etc. Moreover digital images immeasurably ease and speed up publication (for scholarly or other purposes) and printing.

Some 70 per cent of more than 900 items are now available in digitized form, in the physical form of carefully attested CDs. All sources are kept in their original digitized copies, in their archive form, and in a form partly edited and rendered usable for handling. The last are the basic visual units of of the collection, held in examinable form with detailed information, and depending on length, supplied with pictorial information from one, two or more sources.

It was a decisive step to place the numerous, expanding source materials on a single centrally accessible computer, with no limit to the number of sources simultaneously examined. Notably, what researchers receive on CD or over the computer network is not just a mechanically digitized copy of a physical entity (whether the entity be the source or a microfilm of it). It is an inspected source interpreted and stored with a researcher’s care ‒ “verified” source material intended to meet to the utmost research needs of quality, availability, origination and attestation. This type of preparatory work became possible through digital techniques. To sum up, digitization brought a hitherto unimagined change in the logistics of preparing research efforts, lectures or publications.

However, this vast collection of digital images would be dead material if it were not linked to the requisite registration systems, whose use it facilitated. The idea had arisen with the microfilm collection that its content should not be recorded only in a traditional inventory book, but in a more up-to-date electronic inventory that would ease the pursuit of information in the material and contain more information as a starting point for researchers. In their detail, the microfilm collection and Digital Collection based upon it carried more than a “library” inventory book of basic information in standardized form. It held not only the data necessary for identifying the source (archives, sigla, type of book), but its notation typology, provenance, and other research-enhancing information. These are augmented by data on the features of the digital version (colour or black-and-white, resolution, extent, quality of the pictures, etc.) and by a specimen page of each.

Another prospect for digitization is to link the pictures of the sources with an index of content. The index (a list of textual and melodic units – items) is both an aid to orientation in the sources and a research method historically independent of the digitization. Frequent use of it resulted partly from the difficulty of access to the sources, but also because digitization had itself brought significant change in the latter. The content indices prepared in standardized form register the essence of the codices’ liturgical content, and make them easily comparable without resort to the codices themselves, with their very varied and multifarious information. The Digital Collection becomes complete with the conjunction of the indices and the digital images, which complement each other well: the former ease orientation, the latter give rise to the checking of the content indices, which includes interpretation of the codex. Attached to the compilation of the content indices are some scientific projects. With the Office, see the CAO‒ECE, and with the Mass, the Gradualia programme.

Examining the history and traditions of medieval liturgical music calls typically for several sources to be studied “at once”. The one means of doing so available in earlier decades was with microfilm copies. It was to meet the requirements of the researchers into early music (still within the frame of the Folk Music Research Group at that time) that the Institute’s Microfilm Collection was formed in 1966. One founder was Janka Szendrei, who looked after it for decades (through to the recent past), kept its register, and in conjunction with László Dobszay, saw to its systematic expansion.

It contained copies from Hungarian and in some cases foreign collections, coupled with some films made by the Collection staff itself. Its systemic expansion followed two criteria: (1) to gather as far as possible the musical sources of Hungarian medieval liturgical music, and (2) to obtain comparative sources from abroad.

As for the first, the number of surviving sources from Hungary is severely limited by international standards: widespread destruction has left an estimated 180‒200 notated sources. Adding in unnotated sources (such as breviaries and missals), there are only, as a working hypothesis, 350 musical sources associable with the Hungarian Middle Ages. Here the Microfilm Collection can be called remarkably complete. Furthermore, it includes a representative collection of modern sources of the period from Hungary.

The comparative sources acquired (altogether about 550) are set partly by the research topics at any time, and partly by the goal of a collection representing in order of importance the regional and institutional traditions connected with the Hungarian tradition. So they are strong on the medieval Gregorian sources from Central Europe, less so on those Southern and Western Europe. Of course the collection is not complete in this respect and was not intended to be. The aim was for a researcher with a certain concept to find the relevant sources from various periods and districts side by side, and conduct comparative examinations. So the collection is less important as an archive than as a means of research assistance. Though the quantity of source materials present is considerable, its specialist importance lies less in its size than in its composition: it alone covers the full range of sources for early Hungarian music, and for some regions it is internationally important to research into medieval music. Its registry for a long time consisted of a handwritten list, now in digital form, that more or less followed the order of acquisition, so that apart from its main objectives, it provides a timeline of the research over the period since its foundation.

Most of the microfilms tie in with background researches for the medieval volume of the History of Music in Hungary, or with notation research conducted by Janka Szendrei. A surge of acquisitions followed from the CAO‒ECE series begun in 1988 and from research into the Ordinary, which speeded up in the 1990s. Interest in the source work arising from new directions of research and in certain areas of it pursued by a younger generation tied in with work in foreign libraries (e. g. in Zagreb, Prague and Olomuc), and some previously neglected fields (e.g. post-Tridentine manuscripts and printed materials). However, the microfilms are playing a decreasing role in new acquisitions, due to greater quantity of digital sources being made available.