Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

The Benedictine monks of Saint John’s Abbey in Minnesota founded Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in 1965 in response to the destruction of manuscripts and books in European libraries during the two World Wars. Using the latest technology available, they created a microfilm collection for safekeeping against the possibility of another European war. Initially, the effort focused on preservation of western monastic manuscripts in Austria and Germany, but soon expanded throughout Europe to the Iberian Peninsula and south to Malta and Ethiopia. With escalating unrest in the Middle East, the museum began in 2003 to digitize manuscripts there. Started in Lebanon, the project quickly expanded to encompass Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and the Old City of Jerusalem. Today, library staff can be found working with their many partners anywhere in the world where rare books and manuscripts require protection from wars, political unrest, fraud, or even the well-meaning but sometimes damaging efforts at preservation by untrained volunteers.