The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) was founded in 1965 by the Benedictine monks of Saint John's Abbey and University. Its mission is to preserve endangered manuscripts through the creation of photographic surrogates.

Initially working with Benedictine monastic libraries in Austria and Germany, by the 1970s HMML had expanded its scope to include non-western libraries and archives across Europe and into Ethiopia. Since 2003, work has expanded to the Middle East and India.

To date HMML has photographed more than 125,000 complete manuscripts in hundreds of libraries capturing more than 40 million pages. This makes it the world’s largest single resource for the study of manuscript cultures from both east and west.

This grant will enable HMML to fund 12 - 20 digitisation studios per year for the duration of the grant. Each studio will be able to digitise at least 350 - 400 manuscripts a year, depending on the working conditions and state of the manuscripts being processed.