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Comment by fsckboy | Hacker News Reader

FTA: This scroll is one of the most important literary documents still in private hands.

and: However, the return of the scroll to the auction block echoes an earlier controversy. In 2001, when the manuscript was last offered for sale, Carolyn Cassady – the former wife of Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for the novel’s Dean Moriarty – denounced the auction as “blasphemy”, arguing that the scroll belonged in a public library rather than a private collection. “Jack loved public libraries,” she said at the time, adding: “If they auction it, anybody rich could buy it and keep it out of sight.”

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If it's in a library, it's going to be in special collections, and nobody's going to see it. It will be preserved and kept safe for the rare scholar who has a legitimate need to see the original, but for most purposes the archetype is never needed. We don't have the archetype of Vergil's Aeneid, but it's well studied nonetheless.

If it's in a private collection, a scholar who really, really needs to see it might make an arrangement with the owner. For everyone else, though, there are copies at the local bookstore. Bonus, though: if it's in a private collection, there's a chance that it physically is in a library. Some private collections are housed inside public (usually university) library special collections. From the investor's standpoint, it's worth it to have professionals who know preservation keeping the book in climate-controlled, reasonably secure facilities.

The billionaire who buys this will almost certainly not allow that kind of access. If its in a public archive its much easier to get that kind of access.

Someone in another comment said they got to see it in an exhibition 20 years ago. So it sounds like even if it’s in some billionaire’s collection it’s taken care of and the public does get an opportunity to see it, at least sometimes.

I saw it around ~15 years ago in a NYC museum. My memory is hazy, but I remember being surprised that it was held together with scotch tape.

”The library does not allow me access” is a much more viable lawsuit than ”Mr Moneybags does not allow me access”

Mr. Moneybags is also much more likely to gate access to documents based on what they think the purpose of the research is. If they don't like your opinions, sorry, out of luck.

This is also a problem with special collections in libraries, unfortunately.

Don't you have a 1A right to access them so long as you are not a risk of damaging them? I've never tried myself.

Seems pretty scannable. Maybe someone could do that and put it online (estate permitting), or even print and sell photographic reproductions of the scroll, complete with scotch tape splices every 12 feet.

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