NEBRASKA QUILT PROJECT RECORDS LAUNCHED IN THE NATIONWIDE QUILT INDEX
July 31, 2008
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA and EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN, July 31, 2008--The Quilt Index (www.quiltindex.org), a national partnership of The Alliance for American Quilts and Michigan State University, announces the public launch of an online resource cataloging nearly 5000 quilts and 3000 quiltmakers from Nebraska, documented in one of the early statewide quilt documentation projects completed in the United States.
The Nebraska Quilt Project was conceived in 1987 by members of the Lincoln Quilters Guild who recognized the state's vast resource of material culture information deserving of documentation and retention. They sought guidance from the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and formed a lasting relationship with professor Patricia Crews, now director of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, and member of the board of directors of the Alliance for American Quilts.
Crews credits the documentation initiative and the resulting book, Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1991) edited by Crews and Dr. Ronald Naugle (Nebraska Wesleyan University Professor of History), as one of the primary reasons for the founding of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1997.
Major donors Robert and Ardis James were impressed by the award-winning book (it won the Smithsonian's Frost Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Crafts in 1993), as well as the commitment of the Lincoln Quilters Guild and the entire Nebraska quilting community that made it possible. Their subsequent decision to donate their own collection of nearly 950 quilts and continued support as lead donors to the building of the museum which opened on March 30, 2008, was strongly influenced by the vitality of the Nebraska tradition.
Quilts documented in the Nebraska Quilt Project date back to the early 1800s, but the majority were made between 1870 and 1940, the period of settlement and development of the state. Some of the quilts are now part of the collections of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum (www.quiltstudy.org).
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries is pleased to have had the opportunity to partner with Michigan State University, The Alliance for American Quilts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services on the Quilt Index project, says Crews. "The Nebraska Quilt Project records are now much more accessible to researchers to further the knowledge base of quiltmaking traditions nationwide." The Quilt Index records may be supplemented with additional research aides provided by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries which includes a special section on quilts, quiltmakers and quilt history in its Archives and Special Collections (www.unl.edu/libr/libs/spec/quilt.shtml)
This launch was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through a national Leadership Grant for Library-Museum collaboration. This phase will expand the Quilt Index to more than 15,000 quilts and the associated documentation available for searches across the collections for patterns, individual quiltmakers, themes, techniques, and many other characteristics. Moreover, it will result in a model for repositories--of any size and anywhere in the world--to make thematic collections of any kind more accessible and useful for education and research.
Tradition meets technology
The Quilt Index idea (www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/projects/quiltindex.php)was incubated by The Alliance for American Quilts, a nonprofit organization comprised of a broad range of key scholars, curators, librarians, and quilt artists in the U.S. dedicated to the study, preservation, and sharing of American quilt history. The Quilt Index was conceived and developed by The Alliance for American Quilts in partnership with Michigan State University's MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online and the Michigan State University Museum. The project has been supported in part by major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
The Quilt Index merges tradition with technology and springs from the work of a unique team of researchers and experts who are committed to making significant, quilt-related data accessible for research and teaching as well as developing replicable applications of technology in the humanities. Already the pilot phase of the Quilt Index has resulted in material that services the collection management needs of individual repositories and, at the same time, makes their collections accessible to users worldwide.
Principal Quilt Index partners
The Alliance for American Quilts, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1993 and now headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina supports and develops projects to document, preserve, and share the history and stories of quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance brings together institutions and individuals from the creative, scholarly and business worlds of quiltmaking to advance the recognition of quilts in American culture. For more information, visit www.centerforthequilt.org or contact Amy Milne at 828-251-7073;amy.milne@quiltalliance.org
Michigan State University Museum, Michigan's largest public museum of natural history and culture and the state's only land-grant university museum, is home to the Great Lakes Quilt Center. The museum has a long history of engagement in research, education, exhibitions and service projects related to quilts, and holds a collection of more than 600 quilts, quilt-related ephemera and documentation. For more information, visit www.museum.msu.edu or contact Marsha MacDowell, (517) 355-2370 (tel); macdowel@msu.edu
MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences at Michigan State University is devoted to the application of new technologies in humanities and social science teaching and research. It creates and maintains online resources, provides training in computing and new teaching technologies and creates forums for the exchange of ideas and expertise in new teaching technologies. For more information, visit www.matrix.msu.edu or contact Professor Mark Kornbluh, (517) 355-9300 (tel); (517) 355-8363 (fax); mark@mail.matrix.msu.edu
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| Amy E. Milne, Executive Director The Alliance for American Quilts (828) 251-7073 amy.milne@quiltalliance.org http://www.centerforthequilt.org |