http://www.quiltindex.org/

here is the write up for the site:

Fasten your seatbelts! The Quilt Index (http://www.quiltindex.org) has doubled overnight, and we need your help to tell the world. Of course nearly 50,000 searchable quilt records from more than 29 contributors across the country didn’t happen in 24 hours.

 

We all know that the amazing, hard-working crew at MSU and MATRIX have been laboring away for several years in cyberspace to bring the work of thousands of patient quilt documentarians across the country to one place, so they could be viewed, admired and studied. They’ve been building this vastly expanded site behind the scenes for many months, so that one day, we could pull back the curtain and dazzle the world. That day is now.

Not only are their many more quilts from many more state documentation projects, there are some awesome new bells and whistles added during the “facelift” given to the Quilt Index. The re-launched Index website includes 11 new contributors, plus the groundbreaking Signature Quilt Project (the first one to incorporate public submissions), as well as new user tools and an uplift to the design and navigation.

 

New contributors funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Expansion grant and/or by the contributors themselves are: the Hawaiian Quilt Research Project, the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program, the Minnesota Quilt Project, the New England Quilt Museum/MassQuilts, The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey at Rutgers University Libraries/ Special Collections and University Archives, the North Carolina Museum of History, the Rhode Island Quilt Documentation Project at University of Rhode Island, the West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search, Inc., and the Wyoming Quilt Project, Inc. Previously launched under the NEH grant are contributions from the American Quilt Study Group, the Mountain Heritage Center and the State Historical Society of Iowa. The Kansas Quilt Project and the Connecticut Quilt Search records will also be included in the re-launch, with funding provided by the projects themselves.

 

An Institute for Museum and Library Services National Leadership grant provided funding for new user tools to be released tomorrow. Included are a zoom tool, allowing users to get a detailed view of all images in the Quilt Index, and a compare tool, providing a way for users to view multiple quilts side-by-side, both useful and exciting new resources for Quilt Index users. IMLS funding along with a generous grant from the Salser Family Foundation made possible another compelling component of the re-launch: the Signature Quilt Project (SQP). The SQP provided an opportunity to pilot the public submission of privately owned quilts with a narrow but deep focus – signature quilts. Key project partners for the SQP were Lynn Gorges and Nancy Hornback who began the project in 2003. The Quilt Index presentation of the SQP includes galleries and an essay and provided an opportunity for the development of programming and training materials to support this test of the public-submission process.

 

Press release and eNews issue on the Quilt Expansion coming up. Your help is spreading this exciting news is much appreciated. For now, send folks directly to the Quilt Index (http://www.quiltindex.org). There’s also a feature on the expansion on our home page: http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/

A great place to start your tour is the “Jamestown First Baptist Church” quilt submitted to the Signature Quilt Project by AAQ board alumni Jane Evins Leonard: http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplaynew.php?kid=4-15-5C. This quilt is a real beauty and there is a great essay in the full record that tells the story of the quilt that keeps on giving 70 years after it was made. 

NOTE about the zoom tool: keep in mind that the zoom tool is offered for the basic display pages (ex: http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplaynew.php?kid=4-15-5C). The full record pages do not feature the zoom tool. However, for records in the Signature Quilt Project for which multiple images were provided, detail  images are included in the full record display for that quilt.

Thanks,

Amy Milne and Meg Cox on behalf of the Quilt Index leadership team (Justine Richardson, Mary Worrall, Marsha MacDowell and Amy Milne)

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Learning, Shout out, quilting. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.