Throughout its history, the MHL has relied on a combination of donation and purchase to build its holdings. In June 1906, Goshen College received as a gift a 1534 Bible in the Zurich (Froschauer) translation long favored by the Swiss and South German Anabaptists over the more widespread Luther translation. One of the library's most prized pieces, the only known copy of the 1564 (first extant) edition of the Ausbund, an Anabaptist hymnal still used by the Amish, was purchased for $10 in 1928 in a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, bookshop.