The last episode of "60 Minutes" included a segment on the Vatican library, with its millions of unique and irreplaceable books. It's just too awful to contemplate the loss if the building were lost in some disaster.
Why isn't there a program to digitize all of it? Sure, it'll take decades, but every treasure digitized is one that won't be lost. It doesn't have to be imaged with the finest scanners available, even just a cheap digital camera is enough to record the information for posterity. And, it's the information that matters, not the physical books.
Most of the sources are in Hebrew and Aramaic. Though I couldn't find the transcription of the scrolls there. It could be very useful to place it right there on the site.
They have a few featured ones that have been translated into English. Either way I find this incredible, to think these ancient scrolls will be stored digitally forever into the future.
While I think this is very cool, what makes you think the digital realm will last longer than the physical scrolls?
Just recently it was considered major digital archaeology when Jordan Mechner went on his expedition to recover the source of Prince of Persia. That was only 25-30 years old.
For as long as they're useful to academics who want to study the Dead Sea Scrolls or as long as they're considered a valuable cultural artefact, they'll be converted to whatever new formats become used. The same applies, pretty much, to the actual Dead Sea Scrolls as well - as long as people want them to continue existing, they'll be preserved, but without being actively looked after, they're likely to decay as well.
Why isn't there a program to digitize all of it? Sure, it'll take decades, but every treasure digitized is one that won't be lost. It doesn't have to be imaged with the finest scanners available, even just a cheap digital camera is enough to record the information for posterity. And, it's the information that matters, not the physical books.