My most productive research to date has happened in the most unlikely of places: some guy's house in Versailles. I guess it's not entirely unlikely - this guy (Frank, a history/music professor) happens to have done graduate work in musicology. While preparing his dissertation he managed to collect/photocopy/transcribe a mind-boggling number of letters to and from composer Darius Milhaud, who (thanks to Frank) is shaping up as an important figure in my own dissertation. In Milhaud's correspondence, I'm finding lots of contract negotiations, juicy quotes about money, and the financial figures I used to hope I would find for all the composers I wanted to focus on. Score!
There are advantages and disadvantages to researching in someone's home. One advantage is that Frank feeds me lunch. (Thanks, Frank!) Another is that I don't have to deal with microfilm, which puts me to sleep/makes me hate my life. Yet another is that Frank lets me photograph as many sheets of paper as I like, so I can collect endlessly and put off the difficult task of analysis and synthesis for when I get back to Somerville.
Disadvantages: I have to schlep to and from Versailles, which tends to take 1.5 hours going, 1 hour coming back. I also have to work around Frank's schedule, and since he seems to work 4 jobs (ahh, the life of an academic) I only have access to the Milhaud correspondence once a week.
Still, there are two things about working at Frank's that have made this research experience not only more productive but more enjoyable than any other: I get all the hot tea I can drink, and have a space all to myself. It's Frank's daughter's former bedroom.
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Microfilm makes me hate my life, too. I wonder if this should be a sign that I am in the wrong profession, or just be really glad that I am working in 2010, not, say, whenever it was that every thing was on microfilm and nothing was digital. Sounds like an amazing opportunity and find!
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