Hungarian museum journals online

During the last year or so, most publications of Hungarian museums have been digitized by the company Arcanum. The database can be reached from the central information portal of Hungarian museums, MUSEUM.HU. The publications range from historical reviews to archaeological and art historical journals. All journals as well as many catalogues (900.000 pages total) have been made accessible in a central database. The website and the database are in Hungarian, but many of the journals and books themselves are more accessible, as they are often in English or German. 

Unfortunately the interface is extremely cumbersome (I've been using JSTOR and similar databases for many years, so I know that it is possible to do this kind of job well). While the site has a powerful full-text search engine, it is difficult to browse through publications. New windows keep popping up and every page is in a separate pdf file. There does not seem to be a way to provide direct links to publications (well, you can link to them, but the results won't load), and you cannot download PDF versions of full articles. Another problem is that several digitized volumes are not accessible, as some museums did not allow the online publication. However, these have also been built into the database, so references to them will appear in search results - but you will not see them (this is the case with many publications of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery).
The resource can still come in handy if you need to look something up in the Journal of Veszprém County Museums or if you need to find a quick reference about a specific place of monument. The database contains nearly all the publications of Hungarian county museums, and the journals and some catalogues of large state museums. 


If you are brave enough to navigate a Hungarian-language database, you can find several important publications. These include for example catalogues of medieval goldsmith and bronze objects at the Hungarian National Museum. For these, scroll down on the opening page to "Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum" to find "Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Seria Archeologica", and these volumes there: 

Lovag Zsuzsa: Mittelalterliche Bronzgegenstände des Ungarischen Nationalmuseum, (Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Seria Archeologica 3; Budapest, 1999)

Kolba H. Judit: Liturgische Goldschmiedearbeiten im Ungarischen Nationalmuseum, 14.-17. Jahrhundert. (Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Series Mediaevalis et Moderna 1; Budapest, 2004)

You can also find a small guide to the medieval exhibition of the Hungarian National Gallery, and an overview of Renaissance exhibitions in 2008: Go to "Magyar Nemzeti Galéria" and then to "A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai" to find:

Török Gyöngyi: Gothic Panel Paintings and Wood Carvings in Hungary, Permanent exhibition of the Hungarian National Gallery (2005)

Mikó Árpád, ed.: Renaissance year 2008.

 
Of museum journals, Ars Decorativa, published by the Museum of Applied Arts (you can find it as "Iparművészeti Múzeum") contains studies on the decorative arts in English, German, and French.
For medievalists, the publications of the Monument Protection Office ("Kulturális Örökségvédelmi Hivatal") are also very useful. They are generally in Hungarian, but with summaries in foreign languages.

A similar database has been prepared from the publications of the Hungarian National Archives, which include numerous medieval source editions.