Subject: Re: tc-list A Lamentation and A Warning

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 12:02:36 EDT

Dear List

The Muenster institute has a fine reputation and is open to all who would 
like to visit.  While it is true that they are not open 24 hours a day seven 
days a week I would  not expect this either.

Sincerely,

Dr. Cleon L. Rogers
An American in Germany

---

From: "Dave Washburn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 16:44:33 -0700

> days a week I would  not expect this either.

And it costs more than I make in a month to travel from Arizona to 
Munster to look at their stuff, so that means that the materials 
should only be available to a specific elite, right?

An American not in Germany

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Ich veranlassenarbeitenworken mein Mojo."

---

From: "Maurice A. Robinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 15:26:20 EDT

On Sat, 18 Sep 1999 12:02:36 EDT [email-masked] writes:

>The Muenster institute has a fine reputation and is open to all who 
>would like to visit.  While it is true that they are not open 24 hours a
day 
>seven days a week I would  not expect this either.

I would have to concur with Cleon Rogers on this point, since I have had
ample opportunity to make use of the Muenster facilities and plan to do
so in the future. 
Dr Aland and the entire staff were always courteous and extremely helpful
in regard to supplying any films I needed while there, as well as
providing a guest study room with microfilm reader, along with the use of
their extensive text-critical library. The Institute is available within
a normal 40-hour work week schedule for such research.

To be sure, the Institute has restrictions imposed which prohibit the
loan or duplication of its film holdings. Many of these restrictions were
imposed upon Muenster by the libraries or monasteries holding the
original manuscripts in question. In such a case one should better
appreciate the often complex negotiations which at least allowed Muenster
to obtain a copy of such MSS rather than to tell interested scholars that
they would have to travel to who knows how many places and make their own
negotiations with the owners of such MSS in order to work with them.

And yes, it is expensive to travel to Muenster to perform collation
research, and in most cases too expensive for most American researchers.
The options available in this country through IGNTP and AMBC, the Library
of Congress,  as well as other sources are helpful, but certainly nowhere
near as exhaustive as what can be found in Muenster, and for extensive
projects there remains no other alternative. Certainly it would be
desirable to have equivalent holdings available for interlibrary loan in
the US, but unless someone will fund more expeditions such as those of
Clark in the late 40s and early 50s with an intent to increase the number
of MSS currently available in the US, we are limited to the resources
available, like it or not.  Muenster simply cannot duplicate or share its
holdings due to various contractual restrictions, so there is no point in
arguing over or making demands regarding what they cannot change. 

Perhaps one day the trustees may consider opening a North American branch
of the Institute (still under their control) with full copies of their
holdings. Such would be extremely helpful to American scholars and far
less expensive, even with travel and study on-site still required under
the contractual arrangements.  

It probably is time to eliminate the Muenster-bashing and offer concrete
proposals for increasing the number of MSS available for interlibrary
loan in the US, especially in regard to those which currently have
problems relating to their film condition. Seems like a center obtaining
copies of all holdings at basically public museums which are willing to
share their resources for scholarly purposes (e.g., the British Museum,
the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Vatican library) would be a good place to
start, with other sources added as funding becomes available. Of course
"funding" is the key word, and this one problem will likely prevent our
current holdings from increasing significantly over the next 50 years or
more.  Time to go back to Muenster!

The matter of the care taken with the AMBC MSS is another issue, and
perhaps the only pertinent one remaining.  

==============================================
Maurice A. Robinson
Professor of NT and Greek
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina