“Digital Dress: 200 Years of Urban Style, A Model Web Portal for Library/Museum
Collaboration”
The Wayne State University Library System in collaboration
with the Detroit Historical Museum, the Henry Ford, and
Meadow Brook Hall are pleased to announce we have been
selected to receive an Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS) 2003 National Leadership Grant for Library-
Museum Collaboration.
2003 National Leadership Grants for Library-Museum
Collaborations were awarded to 16 organizations nation-wide.
Our award was the only one of its kind in Michigan. The grant
will cover a two-year period beginning October 2003, and the
amount of the award is $249,433.
- Digital Dress Collections
- IMLS
- Participants:
- Detroit Historical Museums
- The Henry Ford
- Meadow Brook Hall at Oakland University
- Wayne State University Library System College of Fine and Performing Arts
- Wayne State University Library System
- Project Staff
- Working Documents
- Other Fashion Sites
©2002 Wayne State University Board of Governors
ABSTRACTFashion changed nearly as quickly 200 years ago as it does today. In fact, clothing responds immediately to changes in popular culture, industrialization, inventions, labor organization, and society's socio-economic and ethnic mix. This project will feature both the clothing of Detroit residents, from pioneer to socialite to labor unionist, and items from national collections founded by Detroit auto barons Henry Ford and the widow of John Dodge. These collections will be used to explore the significant cultural changes occurring in the United States between 1800 and 2000. The Detroit-worn clothing reflects the city's complex mix of race and class; the Ford and Dodge collections document significant fashion trends from the time period.
In this two-year project, Wayne State University in collaboration with the Detroit Historical Museums, Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, and Meadow Brook Hall will create a universally accessible, unique, research quality web portal for increasing access to a multi-institutional collection of 5,000 digital images of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and accessories representing fashion during this period of urban transformation. The partners have received $249,433 from IMLS for the project.
Together, the collections of these institutions contain more than 40,000 items, including occupational, formal, recreational, mourning, masquerade, and everyday wear. They reflect both the clothing of Detroit, an important urban center during this time period, and the fashion of urban centers across the United States. To our knowledge, no such shared historic costume database exists, as most comparable collections represent the holdings of a single institution. (See Appendix A: Historic Costume Collections on the Web).
While the National Endowment for the Humanities has recognized portions of the collections as having “national significance”, it is important to point out that the collaborative aspects of this project are the critical component. The individual collections are currently accessible only by visiting each location and most of the items cannot be publicly displayed due to space constraints. Therefore, use of the collections requires special arrangements between the users and the curators. Our project places the user at the center of the process, making the collections available when and where they need them. It encourages users to independently explore and gain a further understanding of the issues within our community
Our resource will be the first of its kind and will serve as a model of library/museum collaboration for cultural repositories.Project goals include:
Goal 1: Create a simple yet powerful web portal that will enhance, expand and promote use of our multi-institutional collection by users of all ages including students, researchers, instructors, and other 21st century learners.
Goal 2: Build a substantial and unique cultural resource that “virtually unifies” the individual collections and provides users with a new means of accessing these resources while preserving and protecting the existing collections for future generations.
Goal 3: Serve as a model of library/museum collaboration for developing cultural resources.
Goal 4: Serve as a model for developing an historic costume thesaurus for application of standardized search terms.
The project will be guided by the “Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials” developed by the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The guideline addresses digitization issues such as project planning, material selection, copyright and intellectual property, quality control, sustainability, evaluation, metadata and preservation. The guideline can be found at: http://www.nyu.edu/its/humanities/ninchguide/
For more information contact Jeff Trzeciak.
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The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning, supports Wayne State University |