Collections of textiles—historic costume, quilts, needlework samplers, and the like—have benefited greatly from the digital turn in museum and archival work. Both institutional online repositories and collections-based social media sites have fostered unprecedented access to textile collections that have traditionally been marginalized in museums. How can curators, interpreters, and collections managers make best use of these new opportunities?
The book explores:
- The nature of digital material culture.
- The role of audience participation versus curatorial authority online.
- Audience-friendly collections metadata and tagging.
- Visual, rather than text-based, searching and cataloging.
- The legality of ownership and access of museum collections online.
- Gender equity in museums and archives.