The Scottish textile industry has a rich legacy that is preserved within numerous museums and archives in and beyond Scotland. These collections comprise textile machinery, tweeds and tartans, haute couture garments, knitwear, paisley shawls, furnishing fabrics and pattern and sample books, designers’ records and other business archives of their manufacturers. Many are relatively unknown yet can provide a wealth of information for historians, textile designers and other researchers.

Scottish Textile Heritage Online provides a unique overview of textile collections in Scotland’s museums and archives and promotes access to these collections though this website. The project team undertook a groundbreaking survey, mapping textile heritage collections in 118 museums and archives in Scotland and the UK. For the first time, highlights of these collections can be explored in one online database and image gallery. This is enhanced with online resources that demonstrate how the collections can be used and interpreted.

This project has laid the foundations of a sustainable textile collections network, bringing together museum and archive professionals who previously had limited contact with one another. It has demonstrated the value and the need for cross- sectoral collaboration between museum and archive staff in managing hybrid collections that undercut traditional object/archive classifications. The project provides a well documented exemplar and evaluation model for cross-sectoral documentation of collections. It breaks new ground by offering a valuable case study of collection level description for museums.

Scottish Textile Heritage Online was supported by the Scottish Executive’s Strategic Change Fund, administered by the Scottish Museums Council. The project was led by Heriot-Watt University Archive, Records Management and Museum Service in partnership with Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow University Archive Services, Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Scottish Borders Council Museum and Gallery Service and the University of Dundee Archive, Records Management and Museum Service. The project employed a multi-disciplinary team of archivist, curator and textile conservator: a project coordinator, based at Glasgow School of Art, and two documentation and survey officers, one based at Paisley Museum and the other at Heriot-Watt University’s Scottish Borders Campus, Galashiels. The project also drew upon the expertise of textile historians, designers and other users.