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The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University has been awarded a $343,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the cataloging of more than 15,000 Eastern Christian manuscripts digitized in the Middle East and Ethiopia.

This project builds on a Mellon-supported HMML project that began in the 1990s that developed standards for electronic cataloging of manuscripts. A 2008-2009 Mellon grant laid the groundwork for this most recent award by refining those cataloging standards for use with non-western manuscripts and devising a model for distributed cataloging of these collections by scholars located in the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

HMML is the only institution in the world exclusively dedicated to the photographic preservation of manuscripts, with a particular emphasis on manuscripts located in places where war, social unrest or economic conditions pose a threat to collections or to the communities holding them.

In many cases, the manuscripts digitized by HMML are held by monasteries or churches that are not able or willing to provide outside researchers with access to their collections. By contract with the owners, HMML provides free access to all of its collections, and can make copies of microfilms or digital surrogates for scholarly use. All commercial rights are retained by the owners of the manuscripts.

“HMML’s practice is to photograph all manuscript books (codices) in each collection. Unless the manuscripts are cataloged, however, they remain unknown and inaccessible,” said Father Columba Stewart, OSB, executive director of HMML. “HMML has published numerous printed catalogs of its holdings and has become a leader in the electronic cataloging of manuscript collections, providing web-based access to both legacy and newly-created metadata associated with the hundreds of collections photographed in its field projects around the world.”

HMML’s on-line catalog, OLIVER, which was developed with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is the largest on-line catalog of manuscripts in the world, with over 93,000 catalog entries. The staff of HMML continually studies how scholars use OLIVER in order to improve manuscript access. The new project will expand the availability of HMML’s metadata through new search techniques and sharing of metadata with other projects.

Many of HMML’s digitized manuscripts are outstanding examples of illumination and the art of the book. These Eastern Christian manuscripts also typically preserve traditional bindings. Woven silk and other fabrics were used both in bindings and to protect illuminated pages. These elements of the material culture of the book are becoming increasingly significant in academic study, and HMML’s high-quality digital images permit close study of all of these features.

Most of these collections have never been cataloged. Some have been visited by western scholars and are of obvious significance, but have been little studied. Others have been cataloged in Syriac, Armenian, or Arabic in rare, out-of-print catalogs created a century ago. None have been catalogued electronically.

In its breadth and depth, HMML’s digital archive has become the world’s most significant resource for the study of Eastern Christian manuscripts. For more information about HMML and its online catalog please visit our web site at: www.hmml.org .

In the early 1980’s, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library preserved over 1400 manuscripts from the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (Municipal Archives for Cologne, Germany). On March 3, 2009, the need for such work became tragically clear: The six-story building housing the Archive collapsed—damaging buildings surrounding it, as well—and leaving at least two people missing. Although the cause of the collapse will not be determined until a thorough investigation has been completed, many speculate that construction work on a new subway line may have weakened the foundations of the building, causing the collapse. Current operations are focusing on searching for survivors, and no word concerning the status of the collections has yet been made public.

Opened in 1971, the Archive facility was home to historical documents and manuscripts spanning the last millennium of one of the most important cities in Europe-and the largest city in Germany at the end of the Middle Ages. The manuscript collection at the Historisches Archiv is the second-largest one filmed in Germany during HMML's preservation projects from the 1970's to 1990's. HMML also filmed hundreds of selections in color at the Historisches Archiv. The archives generously gave permission to include these in HMML's online image database, Vivarium, and over 370 of these are now freely available over the Worldwide Web. HMML and the Historisches Archiv have long enjoyed a successful collaboration, based on mutual respect and cooperation. When the rescue operations have been completed and recovery work has begun, the HMML staff will offer its services (especially reprography) to the Historisches Archiv, to support their work in the months ahead when their collections will likely be unavailable to scholars.

There are several reports on the collapse in world news at the time of this writing (March 3, 2009):

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,611158,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4072655,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4070603,00.html

Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman, Curator of HMML's Austria/Germany Study Center, was interviewed by Deutsche Welle for their English-language radio broadcast. An MP3 audio file of the interview can be found here (requires Adobe Flash).
 

Download and listen to the program!
Go to http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/preserving-words/ to find all the HMML-related resources on the Speaking of Faith website.

The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, MN was featured on American Public Media’s weekly radio program, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett on Sunday, January 18th. The program aired on all Minnesota Public Radio affiliates.

Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, executive director at HMML, and Getatchew Haile, Regents professor of medieval studies and cataloguer of oriental manuscripts, described how The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library is continuing the Benedictine legacy of preserving and copying ancient manuscripts –with a modern technological touch. The program’s website also has video footage and interviews with HMML staff describing different aspects of HMML’s world-wide outreach and preservation work. HMML is the home of the world's largest collection of manuscript images and of The Saint John's Bible, a contemporary handwritten, illuminated Bible in English.

“Krista Tippett has redefined the media’s approach to faith and religious culture,” said Fr. Columba. “HMML’s work is to preserve the written record of ancient Christian communities from a diverse array of languages, cultures and histories. This is a great story many Americans will find surprising and fascinating, and we’re very happy a masterful storyteller like Krista Tippett will tell it.”

Winner of a Peabody Award, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett is public radio's weekly program about "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas." It is produced and distributed by American Public Media and currently heard on over 200 public radio stations across the U.S. and globally via the Web and podcast.

For more information about HMML or Speaking of Faith, please visit these websites: www.hmml.org and http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org. An archived version of the program will be available at: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/index.shtml.