Pacific Asia Museum

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage The Pacific Asia Museum will create an electronic catalog of 1,000 significant Chinese textiles, representing more than 300 years of custom and fashion in household decorative items, costumes, and accessories. The electronic catalog will allow scholars and the general public greater access to the collection, which is rarely exhibited because of its fragile nature and the lack of exhibition space at the museum. In addition, the database will be used to develop a range of in-gallery and Web-based education programs as part of the museum's Chinese Community Initiative, a multiyear effort to involve the Chinese community more deeply in the museum's programs. The museum seeks to create a digital photography studio in its textile collection storage area. The digitization process will include carefully unpacking, mounting, and lighting the works and using a high-resolution digital camera to photograph them. Once the works are photographed, they will be repacked in archival boxes to alleviate current crowding. The resulting digital catalog will become part of the museum's Web site, where it can be accessed by visitors in the museum's galleries and research library, as well as by the pubic via the Internet. To complete the process, highlights from the collection will form the basis for a dual-language (Mandarin/English) Web-based education module about Chinese costumes and textiles.