ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA and EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN -February 3, 2011.

The largest online database of quilts in the world is now easier to access and share. The Quilt Index team has released Quilt Index To Go, a fun app that delivers a new Quilt Index quilt to the palm of your hand each day. The app is now available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad on the Apple App Store for 99 cents. All revenue will support Quilt Index expansion and sustainability.  

The Quilt Index website (www.QuiltIndex.org) provides centralized access to nearly 50,000 records, including quilts from state or regional documentation projects, museum and private collections. The Quilt Index, launched online in 2003, is a joint project of Michigan State University Museum;  MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University; and the nonprofit Alliance for American Quilts.
 

"Quilt Index To Go brings resources where people really need them -- where they work and play," says Dean Rehberger, director of MATRIX.  "The Quilt Index To Go app is a great example of MATRIX's dual focus on outreach and research. Working with nonprofits we're bringing new access to the online Quilt Index repository through mobile devices. In this way we help them provide new services to existing users and connections to new users. Through this development, we also advance research on ways mobile devices can access digital libraries across the humanities."

Lee Nakamoto, Consumer Intelligence Orchestrator for AccuQuilt in Freemont, Nebraska, served as an early reviewer for Quilt Index To Go. "I saw quilts and learned snippets of their history that I would never have known without the app. I was amazed with the diversity of techniques, fabrics, styles displayed," says Nakamoto. "My quilt IQ has indeed been significantly increased. The app truly gives exposure to a segment of the population that would not otherwise make it to quilt museums or galleries."

The Quilt Index To Go app draws from the full Quilt Index database so users will see quilts from 28 contributors including museums with quilt collections like the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum  and the National Quilt Museum, documentation projects from states such as Kentucky, Hawaii and Iowa, private collections like the Mary Gasperik Quilts, and most recently an international partner, the South Africa Quilt History Project. Daily quilts display on Quilt Index To Go will showcase more than 200 traditional quilt patterns cataloged in the Quilt Index as well as original contemporary designs. 
 

For questions about the Quilt Index To Go app or the Quilt Index, please contact us at quiltindex@quiltalliance.org