ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries November 1991 / 629 The Dead Sea Scrolls are opened to the public The Huntington Library’s decision to give scholars access to the Dead Sea Scrolls unleashes a publicity storm. I n what has been hailed in the general m edia as a “bold move,” “plainly progressive, plainly correct,” and the “equivalent to breaking down Berlin Wall,” William A. Moffett, director o f the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, an­ nounced on Septem ber 22, 1991, that the library had a complete set of photographs of the D ead Sea Scrolls and that these rare documents would be made available immediately and without restric­ tion. A flurry of publicity including articles on the front pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Tiines, numerous editorials, and a com­ mentary by William Safire brought to the attention of the general public the Dead Sea Scrolls and the questions of intellectual freedom and access that they pose. W hat are th e D e a d Sea Scrolls? As described by the New York Tiines and the Los Angeles Times, the D ead Sea Scrolls are comprised of some 800 manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic that were discovered by Bedouin shepherds b e­ tween 1947 and 1956 in caves east of Jerusalem near the ruins o f Qumran on the Dead Sea in what was then Jordan. These scrolls were said to be one of the most important archeological finds of this century. Dating back to 200 B.C. and into the first century A.D., the scrolls contain books of the Hebrew Bible as well as parchm ent and papyrus manuscripts chronicling the social and religious background o f Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The New York Times explained that “nearly all the original scrolls are housed at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, with a few others on display at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Because of the risks o f damage in war, several sets o f photo­ graphs of the scrolls have been made and stored under the editor’s control at Harvard, Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Oxford University, and the Ancient Biblical Manuscript C enter in thCel aremont, California.” Access to the scrolls is under control of the Israeli Antiquities Authority and the principal editors who were named by the Authority. According to the New r ss e Sc hl o rtebo R t: ed i cr otohP A scroll fragm ent fr o m the Old Testament book o f Deuteronomij‚from the Huntington Library's photographic archive. York Times, the th ree current principal editors are E u g en e U lrich, U niversity o f N o tre D am e; Emm anuel Tov, Hebrew University in Jerusalem; and Emile Puech, Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. Only one o f the original team— Frank M. Cross of the Harvard Divinity School— is still involved in the research. W hat d o e s th e H u n tin g to n h a v e in its c o lle c tio n ? As described by the Huntington, the library possesses “3,000 master photographic negatives taken of the original fragments, as well as duplicates 630 / C&RL News made of the photographic archives at the Rockefeller M useum and the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, including photographs taken in the early years after the original Q um ran discoveries and before the fading and deterioration that has subsequently af­ fected some of the fragments. The collection is believed to include all of the so-called D ead Sea Scrolls in official repositories, including both u n ­ published and published m anuscripts.” The photo­ graphs were made in a series o f trips to Israel beginning in 1980 by Robert Schlosser, a practitio­ ner of the art o f docum ent photography, who was contracted by Elizabeth Hay Bechtel, president and founder of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript C enter (ABMC) in Clarem ont, California, to do the work as a freelancer. (Coincidentally, Schlosserwas and continues to be an employee o f the H untington Library.) H o w th e ' H u n tin g to n a c q u ir e d t h e n e g a tiv e s The H untington offers this explanation: In 1980 Elizabeth Hay Bechtel “persuaded Israeli officials to perm it the photographic duplication o f the ma­ terials held in Jerusalem since their seizure from the Jordanians in the war o f 1967. As a philanthropist and an enthusiast for the preservation of early cultural artifacts, she was anxious not only to pro ­ mote scholarly access b ut to ensure that the infor­ mation contained in the scrolls would n ot b e je o p ­ ardized by war or natural catastrophe. She both personally contributed to the financing the p hoto­ graphing o f the m anuscripts and oversaw the entire operation, arranging for one set o f negatives to be deposited in the ABMC for purposes o f research, and a m aster set to be deposited in secure storage elsewhere. “A rupture between Mrs. Bechtel and the ABMC’s executive vice president, James A. Sanders, re­ sulted in the m aster set remaining in Mrs. B echtel’s possession u n d e r the aegis of the Preservation Council, a California non-profit corporation she created to carry forward her interests. In 1982 she negotiated an arrangem ent by which the m aster set of negatives was officially entrusted by th e P reser­ vation Council to the H untington Library. In accor­ dance with the agreem ent, following her death in 1987 and the subsequent dissolution of the P reser­ vation Council, the photographs becam e th e p rop­ erty o f the library.” W h a t is t h e c o n tr o v e r sy ? Scholars with the exclusive authorization from Israel to work with the scrolls were upset with the H untington’s decision. T he Chicago Tribune at­ tributes to Amir Drori, director of Israel’s Antiqui­ ties Authority, th e assertion that “easing access to records would violate the contract u n d e r which the fragments o f scrolls w ere photographed in 1980. The photographs w ere given to several foreign institutions with the ‘w ritten understanding that they would not be allowed to use them w ithout our agreem ent. This is both a breach o f contract and of ethics.’ Early publication is unethical because only those scholars who dedicated years to deciphering th e fragments should have first rights to release the m aterial.” Scholars w ithout access to the documents were generally pleased with the decision and felt that at last they would have equal footing with the “autho­ rized” scholars. As quoted by the New York Times, Lawrence Schiffman, professor of H ebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, said: “Most will regard those who make this material available as Robin Hoods, stealing from the academically privileged to give to those hungry for the knowledge sacred in these texts. My students will now be able to work with the full set of manuscripts and write th eir dissertations without having to fear that they can be disproven by some unpublished text in the hands of a student o f one of th e editors.” Although the H untington’s announcem ent was widely acclaimed as a positive move for open access and intellectual freedom , the Chronicle o f Higher Education re ported that “the principle of open access intersects with sometimes-conflicting con­ cerns over rights to intellectual property, ownership H um or & p rophecy p reced e th e announcem ent The days and nights leading up to The An­ nouncem ent, and those that followed immedi­ ately afterward, w ere not without stress. And somewhat as it m ust have b een in wartime bunkers and comm and posts, hum or was an essential antidote against the dreaded scourge o f Taking Ourselves Too Seriously. Indeed, it was hard to take anything seriously w hen bewil­ d ered new sm en called to ask how we had come to have “dead sea squirrels,”or TVanchorpersons expressed genuine disappointm ent at finding the scrolls were not in English. And two nights before T he Bomb w ent off, after a terrific meal with friends in a San F ran­ cisco restaurant, I broke open the proffered dessert trea t and read with am azem ent the cryptic message on the little slip of paper: “A surprise announcem ent will set you free.” Wow! It was enough to restore one’s faith in Chinese fortune cookies. (But it was another w eek b e ­ fore I could be sure it didn’t m ean I was about to lose my job.)— W illiam A. Moffett, H unting­ ton Library November 1991 / 631 o f documents, and th e n eed o f librarians archives to balance their responsibilities to researchers, do­ nors, and o ther institutions.” [Ed. note: See the following com m entary by Cathy H enderson, chair of ACRL’s Rare Books & Manuscripts Section for a closer look at these questions.] W h y w e r e t h e sc r o lls n o t a v a ila b le e a r lie r ? At the tim e th e archive was deposited at the H untington, the chief expectation o f the institution was to provide a secure and stable environm ent for the preservation of the photographs, not to serve as a primary c en ter for th eir study. T he Huntington explained that “the agreem ent did provide for schol­ arly access and support o f study, including repro­ duction and distribution o f th e collection ‘on discs’ or o ther means, b u t as a duplicate set o f negatives had been made for the AB MC in nearby Claremont, it is assumed that Biblical scholars would satisfy th eir research needs there— especially since the H untington did not have the specialized reference materials that had been gathered for the use of Biblical scholars at the ABMC. Finally, given the schism betw een Mrs. Bechtel and her form er col­ leagues in the ABMC, H untington officials deliber­ ately chose to avoid becom ing involved in possible litigation betw een the two parties, and consequently took no action w hatever to publicize th e deposit of th e archive. Although m em bers o f what is now called ‘the cartel’ [ed. note: those scholars with permission from th e Israeli Antiquities Association to have access to the scrolls] were well aware of the collection’s existence, they had access to their own resources and had little or no occasion to request permission to use it; scholars not in the cartel were generally not aware of its existence. “The archive came quietly to the H untington and for ten years has rem ained quietly in the darkness of its special vault whose construction Mrs. Bechtel had paid for in 1982. The photographs o f th e scrolls w ere never listed in the library’s comprehensive roster o f special collections. D espite the appear­ ance o f restrictions, curators have in fact never had occasion to turn down requests for access. Silence not regulations, did the trick.” A n d w h y m a k e th e sc r o lls a v a ila b le n ow ? W hen Moffett was appointed librarian at the H untington in 1990 he began a review o f the library’s activities and collections and becam e aware o f the photographic collection o f the scrolls. The agreem ent betw een Bechtel and,the Preservation Council had expired and Moffett felt that access to the photographic collection o f the scrolls should be on the same basis as th e rest of the library’s holdings. The H untington’s general policy on access is to “grant reader’s privileges to any thoroughly quali­ fied scholar, to provide copies o f all of its materials for scholarly reference purposes under the ‘fair use’ doctrine, and to p erm it such persons to publish or reproduce for scholarly purposes any specified item among its holdings subject to copyright restrictions on those materials for which we do not control copyright….No charge is m ade by the library for the use of materials for scholarly purposes; the library does n ot grant exclusive rights to any individual.” Moffett explained that his decision to announce the availability o f the scroll photographs at the H untington was influenced by several recent events. 1) Articles in the London Times about the D ead Sea Scrolls including one of th at quoted a professor as saying the Oxford C enter for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies would open its collection o f scroll photo­ graphs and one th at raised th e issue of exclusivity; M offett stated th at he believed those“photographs w ere duplicates o f the ones in the H untington’s collection. 2) A book advancing th e argum ent that a conspiracy was keeping the m anuscripts from academic scrutiny entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception by Michael Baignet and Richard Leigh becam e a bestseller in England. M offett said he felt that any change in the H untington’s position be established well before the book's scheduled Ameri­ can publication date in 1992. 3) An indication that m em bers o f th e cartel planned to pressure the H untington into transferring the archive to their control and to insist that “no copies o f them be retained hereafter in your care.” Moffett indicated that after consultation with his colleagues these events prom pted him to plan for the H untington’s announcem ent that its collection of scrolls would be open and accessible. The an­ nouncem ent was scheduled to occur in conjunction with the airing of a PBS “Nova” special on the D ead Sea Scrolls in m id-O ctober. Moffett moved up the date o f the announcem ent after reports o f a com­ puter-generated text o f the scrolls created by P ro­ fessors Ben-Zion W acholder and M artin Abegg of Cincinnati’s H ebrew Union College m ade the news. H o w c a n o n e a c c e s s th e H u n tin g to n ’s c o lle c tio n ? The Huntington has prepared the following state­ ment: “Persons wishing to study at th e H untington m ust file a w ritten application to b e adm itted as a reader. T he request should indicate th e applicant’s institutional affiliation, if any, and his o r h e r schol­ arly credentials, and the objective of admission. L etters of recom m endation are often helpful, al­ though not always necessary. Having b een admit- (Cont. on page 634) 634 / C&RL News (Henderson c o n t.fro m previous page) alike. It is behavior, as we have read, which “(al­ though legal) should be avoided.” W hat mechanisms can the library profession employ to persuade an institution to behave differ­ ently? T he H untington Library has offered one example. W hat, beyond heightened public aware­ ness and pressure, has been gained? T he H unting­ ton Library has released only photographic rep ro ­ ductions o f the D ead Sea Scrolls. T he increased availability of the reproductions does not obviate the need for scholars to have access to the originals because what is being produced, albeit on a sched­ ule unsatisfactory to nearly all, is a scholarly edition o f a text. E ditors of texts n eed access to the originals o f surviving manuscripts if their edition is to have authority. Running around the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Rockefeller M useum in Jerusalem, and the scholars privileged to work with the original D ead Sea Scrolls may, in fact, be one way to jum p the hurdles they have erected, but it may not help attain the ultim ate goal o f having democratic access to the original scrolls. The controlling parties need to be convinced that their m ethods are not condu­ cive to even the chosen editors producing an au­ thoritative text because they stifle the free flow of scholarly inquiry and discourse; b ut that may re ­ q uire persuasion o f a d ifferent sort than the H untington’s bold move. ■ ■ (Moffett cont. fr o m page 632) That policy has been consistently applied in succeeding years to the thousands o f scholars who have drawn on the H untington’s fabled resources, as well as commercial and educational enterprises that have used its materials. It is that same principle which is em bedded in ACRL’s and the Society of American Archivists’ 1979 “Joint Statem ent on Access to Original Re­ search Materials:” “A repository should not deny access to materials to any person or persons, nor grant privileged or exclusive use of materials to any person or person, nor conceal the existence of any body of material from any researcher, unless required to do so by law, donor, or purchase stipulations.” Am I wrong in thinking that most o f us simply accept that statem ent as a commonplace? Do any of us still contend with restrictions that mimic the D ead Sea Scrolls scandal? I sincerely hope not. But should any librarian or archivist find himself or herself in the position we found ourselves in at the H untington this year, I trust that person will take heart from ou r experience. Be resolute! Take arms against even a sea o f troubles— and by opposing, e nd them . ■ ■ (Scrolls cont. fr o m page 631) ted, access will be dependent solely on the availabil­ ity o f study space and the num ber of o th er readers seeking access to the same materials. Use during some periods of the year is predictably very heavy, especially in the sum m er months. “In the case of the scrolls archive, the reader will initially be expected to work from images on micro­ film. In most cases it will not be necessary to go directly to the m aster negatives. “I f a person wishes to review the library’s scrolls holdings at a distance, he or she can arrange to examine the microfilm set by asking his or her institutional library to secure it from the H unting­ ton on ordinary interlibrary loan. (According to the library’s customary practice th ere may be a modest charge to offset costs of copying, postage, and handling, but the H untington does not propose to charge a fee for access.)” W h at is t h e c u r r e n t s ta te o f e v e n ts ? “I think it [the controversy] is over for us,” com m ented Moffett. “T he action should shift to the scholars.” W hen asked if he’s heard from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Moffett replied th at he’s re­ ceived an invitation from Emm anuel Tov of the H ebrew University in Jerusalem to attend a confer­ ence, tentatively scheduled for D ecem ber 1991, to discuss the issues surrounding the scrolls. Autho­ rized scholars and representatives o f those institu­ tions holding images o f the scrolls are invited to attend. “T he invitation is u nder consideration,” said Moffett, who reported that the “response to the H untington Library has been overwhelming. N ot a single negative com m ent has come in. I t’s been a remarkable event to be involved in.”—M ary Ellen K. Daυis, editor and publisher, C&RL News ■ ■