Company Profile
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
Company Overview
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.
Company History
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. For details, see: https://hmml.org/about/history/
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
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; and fostering research on the thought and cultures represented in the manuscripts.
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