The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) photographs, catalogs, & provides access to manuscripts located in libraries and archives worldwide.

HMML forms partnerships with manuscript repositories to create digital images of the manuscripts in their collections and to share these images online. HMML gives special priority to manuscripts located in regions endangered by war, political instability, and other threats.

Access is provided by HMML staff and associates, who ensure that the photographs of manuscripts are identified, supported long-term, and made freely available online in HMML Reading Room (vhmml.org). Through fellowships, programs, exhibitions, and more, HMML helps advance manuscript research and scholarly inquiry.

HMML is a library of libraries. Located on the campus of Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, HMML’s digital and microfilm collections include photographs of approximately 486,000 manuscripts preserved in partnership with more than 1,500 repositories worldwide. In addition, HMML’s print reference collection holds approximately 50,000 volumes on topics related to manuscripts, printed books, art, liturgy, and monasticism.

HMML is an acronym for the organization’s official name: Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. The acronym is pronounced HIM-EL.

HMML preserves and shares the world’s handwritten past to inspire a deeper understanding of our present and future. HMML’s mission has three major components:

• Digitally preserving rare and endangered manuscripts
• Archiving, cataloging, and sharing manuscripts online
• Fostering research on the thought and cultures represented in the manuscripts.

See HMML History for more information.

A manuscript is a book or document written by hand. Every manuscript is a unique creation, whereas printed books are typically replicated in multiple copies that are relatively the same in appearance and contents since they are made with mechanical processes.

Even if a manuscript is a word-for-word copy of a common text, it will often bear additional, unique information about its owners, scribe, time period, and important events in the places associated with it. Material aspects—such as whether and how the manuscript is bound together—can say much about the culture that produced it. Often HMML works with handwritten texts, or collections of texts, on pages or folios that are assembled into book form. HMML also works with manuscripts in other formats, such as archival material, correspondence, drawings, fragments, maps, and scrolls. See Global Operations.

HMML was founded in 1964 as the “Monastic Microfilm Project,” to photograph at-risk collections of Benedictine manuscripts for long-term preservation and access.

With memories of World War II still vivid, and fearing the outbreak of nuclear war in Europe, the monastic leadership of Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, considered what they could do to help prevent the destruction of cultural heritage. In 1964, Fr. Colman Barry, OBS, became president of Saint John’s University and proposed a project to create microfilm copies of medieval manuscripts located in European Benedictine monasteries—to preserve the contents of these unique documents and to give scholars wider opportunity to study them. Fr. Colman consulted with Fr. Oliver Kapsner, OSB, and Abbot Baldwin Dworschak, OSB, who agreed that the project would be an excellent undertaking for Saint John’s.

The project became a program of Saint John’s University that same year, under the name the “Monastic Manuscript Microfilm Library” (MMML). Microfilming began in Austria in April 1965 under the direction of Fr. Oliver. The work quickly spread beyond the scope of Benedictine libraries to include other religious orders and non-monastic libraries. A major preservation project began in Ethiopia in the 1970s, and in 2003 HMML began working in the Middle East, followed soon after by work in Asia. Today, HMML has preservation partnerships in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

The organization was renamed the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library (HMML) in 1975 to honor the Hill family of Minnesota, whose foundation provided key financial support in HMML’s early years. In 2005, the name was changed to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) in recognition of HMML’s care and display of The Saint John’s Bible and the rare book and art collections of Saint John’s University. The name also makes more explicit the fact that HMML photographs not only monastic manuscripts, but every kind of handwritten heritage that fits its mission. See HMML History.

The ravages of time, fire, natural disasters, persecution, political upheaval, technological change, and neglect have been the principal historic threats to the survival of manuscripts. Manuscripts are also subject to theft or illegal export, especially in conflict zones. In some locations, manuscripts are targeted for destruction by forces intent upon erasing the history and cultural identity of ancient communities.

When partnering with at-risk libraries, HMML works with local communities to create photographic copies of their manuscript collections. These photographs preserve the content of the manuscripts, provide access outside of the library, and can be evidence of a manuscript’s existence if the collections are relocated, lost, or destroyed. By making these manuscript photographs available online in HMML Reading Room, scholars worldwide are provided with long-term access to the collections.

High-quality digital imaging ensures that the contents of manuscripts, including minor details, will be accessible for generations to come. Photographs preserve the manuscripts’ contents at that moment in time. These photographic copies can provide access to a manuscript after loss or damage to the unique original and can provide proof of ownership in case of theft.

Photographs also provide an alternative method of viewing these fragile materials. Online access to manuscript collections is especially useful in situations when communities are dispersed, when it is physically or politically impossible to visit a collection, and in other cases where manuscripts are not easily viewable in person. Providing scholarly access to manuscripts raises awareness of the owning library and community. Deeper study of the manuscripts increases their significance and value. See story, Reversal of Fates.

In the past, Western museums, libraries, and private collectors acquired manuscripts from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and other regions by means that would be considered illegal or unethical today. Entire libraries were alienated or removed from their original communities.

HMML believes that manuscripts should remain in their communities and countries of origin. In HMML preservation partnerships, copies of the manuscript photographs are given to the library that holds the manuscripts, and copies of the photographs are sent to HMML in Minnesota for preservation and public access.

HMML is currently carrying out preservation projects in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. See Global Operations.

Manuscripts stay with the libraries or repositories that hold them. HMML’s methodology is to partner with libraries and repositories, photograph the manuscripts in place, and then put the photographs online for long-term digital preservation and access.

HMML’s work begins by forming partnerships with each library or repository—agreements that allow HMML to make digital photographs of the manuscripts in their collections and share the digital photographs with the general public.

HMML employs local teams to photograph the manuscripts where they are held, creating digital copies of each manuscript in the collection. If a library’s manuscripts are in immediate danger or if physical access is prohibitive, any relocation of the manuscripts is the decision and work of the holding library or repository.

Copies of the digital photographs are given to the library or repository that holds the manuscripts. Copies of the digital photographs also come to HMML in Minnesota. HMML employs catalogers and other staff to ensure that the digital images of these manuscripts are identified, supported for long-term access, and are made freely available to the public via our website, HMML Reading Room.

HMML works entirely with local technicians in partnership with the holding library. HMML provides equipment, training, technical support, and payment to local technicians to create preservation images of all manuscripts in a collection. HMML also has regional field directors who provide ongoing support when needed, ensuring the successful completion of each project. HMML staff and associates also travel throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to monitor progress on current projects and to locate new collections for digitization.

HMML applies the following criteria when deciding whether to pursue a new opportunity:

• Risk to the manuscripts
• Likelihood of obtaining access and permission to photograph the manuscripts
• Assurance of appropriate rights to make the images available to researchers
• Historical and cultural significance of the collection
• Coherence with HMML’s existing and envisioned collections
• Volume of material likely to be digitized

HMML has a small collection of printed books and manuscripts (Special Collections) and artwork (Art & Photographs). These are used as teaching collections, and will eventually be fully available online in HMML Reading Room and Museum.

The majority of the works in these collections were gifts to HMML. On rare occasions, HMML will purchase materials. HMML’s focus continues to be working with libraries around the world to digitally preserve endangered manuscripts.

HMML is a non-governmental, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. HMML is funded by the generosity of the foundations, corporations, and individual donors who support its mission. See Support.

Manuscripts are made available online in HMML Reading Room after they have been cataloged by HMML staff and associates. In rare cases, manuscript images will be made available in Reading Room before they have been cataloged, to facilitate expedited access to the images.

Collections are cataloged based on the availability of funding, cataloger expertise, and project bandwidth. See Repositories by Status.

Once cataloged, both digital and microfilm collections are searchable in HMML Reading Room by country, repository, author, language, genre, date, features, city, or script. Manuscripts are added to HMML Reading Room on a continual basis. See HMML Reading Room.

Collections, including those not cataloged, may also be accessed on-site by visiting HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota. See Visiting Scholars and Fellowships.

Visiting scholars and researchers sustain and inspire HMML’s manuscript preservation work. Their work reminds us that the wisdom preserved by the manuscripts is unlocked only when they are read and studied by those trained in ancient languages and skilled in communicating their discoveries to others. See Fellowships, Visiting Scholars, and Scholarly Programs.

In some cases, digital copies are available by order. See Manuscript Image Order Form.

HMML signs a contract with each owning library identifying that the owning library reserves publication and commercial rights for the images. In this contract, HMML is also granted permission for image use, preservation, and access. On rare occasions, the contract limits HMML’s ability to provide access to the images. HMML’s goal is to provide free access for researchers while honoring the interests of the owning libraries.

Manuscript images can be accessed in the following ways:

1. View the images online in HMML Reading Room
2. View the images on-site at HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota

Furthermore, HMML can usually provide images of complete manuscripts for download once the applicant has agreed to conditions of use reserving publication and commercial rights to the owners of the original manuscripts. If scholars wish to publish images, HMML will facilitate contact with the owning library.

HMML began its work in 1965 using bi-tonal microfilm and made the transition to color digital photography in 2003. HMML still preserves large collections of microfilm images, but all preservation studios since 2003 have operated with digital cameras. Digital photography offers greater cost-efficiency in production as well as providing higher-quality images (today’s digital photographs are made at a much higher resolution than the microfilm technology). Digital images can also be made available to scholars across the world much more easily than landlocked microfilm.

HMML digitizes microfilm on demand for scholars but has no plans for a comprehensive digitization campaign of the entire microfilm collection. Some microfilm collections are being digitized by HMML and made available online, such as the renowned Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML). Other microfilm collections cannot be digitized and made publicly available due to agreements with the owning libraries. Still other collections microfilmed by HMML are now digitally available through work by the owning libraries, and in these cases the digital copy is linked to via HMML Reading Room. See HMML Reading Room.

For all of its advantages, digital imaging does possess challenges for long-term archiving and retrieval. All storage media can degrade or decay, and preferred media formats change over time—as witnessed by the move from floppy disks to diskettes, from CDs to DVDs, and from flash drives and hard drives to whatever is next. HMML has a long-term plan for format migration and regularly refreshes its digital data, backing it up in multiple media stored in several locations both on- and off-site.

While not directly involved with physical conservation of manuscripts, HMML often partners with organizations that support this work at its field sites. In addition, HMML provides resources and strategies for the development of local digital archives.

While HMML itself is not a religious organization, it began as a program of Saint John’s University, a liberal arts institution of higher education sponsored by the Benedictine monks of Saint John’s Abbey. As part of the Benedictine tradition, HMML welcomes all visitors and supports scholarship and preservation of cultural heritage across the boundaries of religion, culture, language, and geography.

HMML’s collections contain more than 100 languages, including Arabic, Latin, Geʻez, Syriac, Armenian, Slavonic, Malayalam, Sanskrit, and Nepalese, as well as vernacular languages such as German, Portuguese, Maltese, Amharic, Bambara, and Fulfulde. See HMML Reading Room.

Hundreds of thousands of Christian and Islamic manuscripts located across the globe are preserved in HMML’s collections, and HMML is also working to preserve Buddhist and Hindu manuscripts. Although there are several hundred Jewish manuscripts in HMML’s collections, all known Hebrew manuscripts in the world have already been photographed by a project based at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.

Much of HMML’s work is in places of historic cultural interaction among various religious traditions. For instance, researchers may find abundant material on relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Spain, Malta, the Middle East, and Ethiopia, as well as cultural exchange between Christians, Hindus, and Muslims in India. For an example of the latter, see the story Enlightened by One Lamp.

Your manuscript collection may be a suitable candidate for digital preservation if it is:

• A premodern manuscript collection of historic importance
• At-risk because of its location or environmental conditions
• Coherent with HMML’s other collections and expertise