The former head of the
Oberlin College Library in Ohio as well as of the Huntington Library in California, Moffett died in 1995. He is remembered chiefly for making copies of the
Dead Sea Scrolls available to all scholars.
Prior to 1991, access to the scrolls had been limited to a small group of academics. Moffett discovered that the Huntington possessed archival photographs of the scrolls in its collection, and decided to make them available to any researchers who had an interest in biblical scholarship.
This decision was controversial in many circles, but Moffett's action was generally admired by his fellow librarians, many of whom are vocal advocates of freedom of information.
Moffett was also interested in bibliokleptomania and once helped apprehend a famous book thief.