Monks with Macs

LAS VEGAS -- Herewith a short tale of reality catching up with fantasy, blending equal parts religious conviction and capitalism.

In 1989, a highly regarded HyperCard stack called "If Monks Had Macs" was a crown jewel in the then-burgeoning HyperCard market. It attempted to show how monks would have used Macintosh computers to link ideas and concepts.

It was rudimentary. It was black and white. Multimedia before Microsoft had a clue.

Cut ahead several hundred years to an imaginary future, the television series Babylon 5. In real time, it's 1995 and a script has been written about an order of space-faring monks who happen to be computer engineers and experts.

In this episode, the monks help correlate a huge mass of disparate data to discover the identity of a deranged bomb-planter.

Well, it's actually 1996, and computers and monastic orders have in fact come together. Its not to solve bomb plots on space stations or to make HyperCard stacks, but to earn money by carefully turning analog data into digital.

The presence of the robed ones in the fast-moving digital world has begun to get noticed.

The Electronic Scriptorium was one of the smaller booths at NEXPO '96, easily overlooked. But beneath the simple veneer throbbed the words to that old song, "Everything old is new again."

The organization, based in Leesburg, Va., acts as the broker between the many orders of monks and nuns and the data entry work that they do.

Edward Leonard, president of Electronic Scriptorium, began working with Benedictine monks at Holy Cross Abby to prevent the development of a country club in the area -- and help them computerize their fruitcake business.

The monks took to the computers and looked for something to do in fruitcake-slack time. One monk, a former library worker, knew several libraries needed help in converting card catalogs to electronic form.

Leonard had the worldly business experience, so in 1991, the Electronic Scriptorium was born.

Contracting with this data entry service has its own cachet. First, although inexpensive, it's not for anyone with tight deadlines. Monks do not put in all-nighters to finish a project; part-time work (usually four hours a day) is the rule.

For their work, the monks and nuns are paid $12 to $14 an hour. Certain companies may be refused on moral grounds. But the real world is clamoring for the careful, accurate work these cloistered workers perform. Now 18 monastic communities are participating, and the Electronic Scriptorium grossed $2 million in 1995.

Are these low rates for quality work taking jobs away from more traditional companies?

"The monks are very sensitive to not trying to undercut others in terms of price to gain an unfair price advantage," Leonard said. "Our prices are fair in terms of the market we compete in. Our quality is very high; therefore, a customer may in fact get a better product for the same cost."

And the customers continue to come. In addition to cataloging the entire photo library of the New York Daily News, the Scriptorium has received three contracts since NEXPO whose total value is about $3.5 million, according to Leonard.

The new clients are heavy hitters: Time-Life, the University of Chicago and Morgan, Lewis and Bacchius of Philadelphia.

In its five years the Electronic Scriptorium has completed more than 500 projects. What was an arresting thought in 1989 has become a reality in the increasingly cyber universe of 1996.

Electronic Scriptorium, (703) 779-0376

-- G.P.

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.