Organizers and volunteers at the Austin Public Library are setting up a routine for their new gem: the 1,150-page, hand-written St. John’s Bible.

Sara Steinhoff, library assistant, said she, other library employees and volunteers are getting into a groove where they can keep a watchful eye on the Bible while visitors get to flip through 3-foot by 2-foot pages every Tuesday and Thursday.

Open viewings will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. next Tuesday and Thursday.

“We’re still kind of in that process of creating a schedule and putting it together,” Steinhoff said.

Benedictine monks at St. John’s Abbey and St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., commissioned the Bible in 1998 to celebrate the beginning of a new millennium. The first words were lettered on Ash Wednesday 2000.

Video showings set

Another useful feature, which accompanies the Bible, is “The Illuminator and A Bible for the 21st Century.” The 50-minute video, all about the Bible, details the painstaking process of hand writing every word and painting every piece of art.

The Austin Public Library will show the video at 1:30 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7. Steinhoff said the Library will have more viewings of the movie as interest in the St. John’s Bible picks up over the next months.