THE QUILT INDEX: AN EVOLVING RESOURCE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Reprinted with permission from the American Quilt Study Group.

https://americanquiltstudygroup.org

By Marsha MacDowell, Mary Worrall, Beth Donaldson, Dean Rehberger, and Alicia Sheill

In 2003, after several years of planning and  testing, the Quilt Index (www.quiltindex.org) was launched with quilt-related data drawn from collections at just four institutions - Michigan State University Museum, Illinois State Museum, Tennessee State Library and Archives, and the University of Louisville Archives and Records Center. 

For the first time, quilt-related data from geographically spread institutions were freely accessible to anyone in the world with access to the Internet and were searchable across collections. As of August 2016, there are now more than 80,000 quilts drawn from collections from hundreds of museums, numerous documentation projects, and many private collections from around the world.

Meeting Goals and Charting New Directions

While the Index always aimed to be the central international repository for images, information, ephemera, and stories about quilts and their makers, one of the original goals was to provide a centralized digital repository to preserve and make accessible the records of the U.S. quilt documentation projects of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Slowly, but surely, that goal is being achieved.

Already all of the records of historical documentation projects in Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island,  Tennessee,

Texas, and Wyoming, as well as some of the records of historical projects in Hawaii, Illinois, and Kansas, are available through the Index.1   The QI team is  working with the American Folk Art Museum to soon add the records of the New York Quilt Project. In addition to these historical projects,  new  and ongoing projects in Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington are adding their records to the  QI.

An early new direction for the QI was to internationalize the content and adaptations for easy inclusion included addressing language restrictions, locale fields, and other elements and developing new partnerships with individuals and institutions around the world. As a result, the QI already contains the records of historical documentation projects in South Africa and Canada.

Another direction that was developed early in the history of the QI was to include the records of quilts held in museum collections. State documentation projects often included museum collections and more than 250 museum collections are represented as part of state projects.

Strategic work by the QI team has resulted in the inclusion of other museum and archival collections including those of the American Folklife Center  at the Library of Congress, Illinois State Museum, White Bluffs Quilt Museum, Country Heritage Park, Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, New England Quilt Museum, Mountain Heritage Center, National Quilt Museum, Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, Royal Alberta Museum, and the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas. With support from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation, the collections of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum are currently being added.

In the last decade the QI team has worked hard to add tools to the Index that make it easier for data to be entered and for data to be used. Over the last   two years we have been working on a visual overhaul of  the website that will make QI a more user-friendly and mobile-friendly up-to-date responsive design. Since the 2003 launch, the QI was structured around a focus on the object – the quilt – but the new iteration of QI will show equally that this is a repository on artists, collections, and stories.

Substantial back end programming is developing the capacity for presenting stories (text, oral, video), creating new search tools, and enabling the ability to associate QI data – on quilts, oral histories, stories, photographs, and ephemera - that will greatly enhance research possibilities.

A Platform for Research

During the past few years, the Index has become a platform to support new lines of scholarly inquiry. For instance, QI staff and an international consortium of humanities specialists and computer scientists used the Index to test new digital methods for visual searching and pattern recognition. Algorithms were developed to isolate salient characteristics (such as color, or line/pattern shapes) to sort through the massive numbers of quilt images as a means to investigate important scientific and humanistic questions.  

A pilot Signature Quilt Project allowed testing of training strategies for individuals involved in shared research interests to individually submit quilts. A Quilt and Health project is using the Index to build content about quilts related to health and wellbeing and then expects to use information in health education and advocacy.

One researcher approached us about using the Index to store her dissertation research data on quilts as she collects it. Not only would this ensure preservation  of her data but it would also give her the immediate advantage of using all of the Index tools and comparing her data with thousands of other  quilts.

A project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities has enabled us to work with the NAMES Foundation to input all of the panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt. A consortium of digital humanists, medical  educators,  and  health  providers  is investigating strategies for individuals to add stories, images, and other data that will augment the now slim data available on each panel, as well as use this quilt in health education. Public access to the panels in the QI   is anticipated to occur in early 2017.

With support from the Salser Family Foundation, a Detroit News Quilt History Project is digitizing, uploading and transcribing the archives of the Quilt Club Corner of the Detroit News in the 1930s. This is a treasure trove of stories, patterns, and photographs   of the largest, most successful, newspaper club of  the era.

New Projects On The Horizon

Other new initiatives are under construction with planned debuts in late 2017 and early 2018 immediately following the launch of the new iteration of QI. With funding from the Sunshine State Quilt Association, a QI Guild Project is being developed and will result in a means for guilds to present their histories, show current activities, and upload their members’ quilts directly into the Index, thus digitally preserving guild members’ quilts and their stories while being able to compare their work with the thousands of quilts and stories in the   Index.

The QI Quilt Legacy Project, funded by the family of the late Claire Vlasin, will result in a strategy for the collections and stories of individual quilt collectors and/or quilt artists to be preserved permanently in the Index – even if their collections have been or will be dispersed. It is anticipated that this will provide a wonderful mechanism to preserve quilt history.

Last, and perhaps most important, with funding from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation, QI  is 

working on the capacity for individual quiltmakers and/or owners to upload their quilt images and stories directly into the Index.

When this   feature becomes activated, it is anticipated that the number of quilts, stories, and artists represented in the Index will grow significantly.

Quilt Index and Future   Directions

QI continues to reach out to individuals and institutions associated with both historical and newly emerging documentation projects to develop mutual strategies to add their data and QI encourages individuals associated with documentation projects and collections to contact QI about joining the Index.

QI is committed to constantly keeping current with new technologies. It wants to make the Index work better for those who contribute information to it as well as those who use it. It wants to use social media and other strategies to spread the word about the QI and to engage individuals in contributing to and using this amazing resource. It wants to tap crowdsourcing of knowledge to improve and enhance existing data.

The hope is that the Index can be a place where ephemeral exhibitions can be seen virtually forever, where images and data from auction sales can be preserved, and where links can be made to key published resources. Of course, the hope also remains that all of the records from the quilt documentation projects in the U.S. and around the world will be inputted and that the Index will be able to provide access to all quilt collections, be they held by museums, private individuals, or corporations.

Realities and Dreams

Michigan State University is the institutional home of the Index with Michigan State University Museum at the helm for overall administration and the intellectual growth of the Index content and MSU’s MATRIX, Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences as the leader in technological  innovation.

MSU provides limited baseline project management and technical assistance, data storage and back-up, continuous updating for all browsers and devices, innovative programmers, and a commitment to keeping the Index viable in perpetuity. The project relies heavily on grants, contracts, and   contributions to increase content  and provide new

tools. Endowments are being cultivated to ensure that the Quilt Index will continue to grow in content, be able to respond to new user needs, and continually incorporate the newest technology.

The QI looks to all those who are passionate about making, using, and studying quilts to help it ensure that the Index continues to serve this community as well as continue finding ways to convey to the non- quilt world why quilts and quiltmaking are so special.

One final note: because quilt artists around the world continue to create new work, there will always be new images and stories that need to be added to  the Quilt Index.