Textile Documents keeps growing with documents contributed by weavers, guilds, collectors, and researchers. Some are available nowhere else. If you have something to share, we'd love to hear from you. Here's what we look for and how it works.

What we can add

• Documents not already in the archive. Search first: if a document is already here, a better or more complete copy is still welcome (see "Missing pages and better copies" below).
• Weaving, lace, and textiles: pattern books and draft collections, manuscripts, periodicals, trade catalogs, patents, guild publications, and other documents about textiles and how they're made.
• Documents that can be shared freely:
  • in the public domain. In the United States that generally includes works:
    • published in 1930 or earlier;
    • published 1931 through 1963 whose copyright was never renewed (it has expired);
    • published before March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice;
    • never published, such as manuscripts, notebooks, letters, and weavers' draft books, when the author died more than 70 years ago (before 1956), or, if the author is unknown, when it was made more than 120 years ago (before 1906). For a more recent manuscript, we need permission from the author or their family or estate, even if you own the manuscript itself.
    Tell us what you know, such as the date and whether there's a copyright notice, and we'll check. Or:
  • shared with written permission from the copyright holder, such as the author, their family or estate, or the publisher, or
  • from another archive or library: only items it marks as public domain or CC0. Please send the link. We can't accept items whose digitizer asks that they not be re-hosted, such as HathiTrust's Google-digitized books. If you own a copy of the book, though, or can find it somewhere else without that restriction, that copy is welcome.

Scans and photographs

We add documents as scans or photographs. If you have something truly special, like an important manuscript or a significant collection, please contact us: we may photograph or scan the originals ourselves. Otherwise we can't take in physical items, such as books, papers, or boxes of materials by mail, like a guild library that's being cleared out. Here's what we need in a scan or photograph:

• Scan or photograph every page, including covers and blank pages, so the copy is complete and in order.
• Resolution: at least 1,500 pixels on the long side of each page; 2,000 or more is better. Fine print and drafts need to be clear when enlarged.
• Formats: a PDF, or one image per page (JPEG, PNG, or TIFF), named so the page order is clear.
• Permission: if it isn't in the public domain, include the copyright holder's written permission (an email is fine).

How it works

1. Contact us first and tell us about it: title, author, date, publisher or source, how many pages, and anything you know about its history. Please don't send files yet.
2. If it's something we can add, we'll let you know how to send it.
3. Scan or photograph it as described above and send it the way we've arranged.

Missing pages and better copies

The documents from Ralph Griswold's Digital Archive are kept exactly as they were, so they can't be changed. If you have pages missing from one of them, or a better or more complete copy, we add it as a new document on Handweaving.net: either a fresh copy of the whole work, or Ralph's copy with the missing pages added. Depending on the document, the new one replaces the incomplete copy in search, or both are listed side by side.

What happens next

We review each contribution, and Handweaving.net makes the final decision about what's added. Once it's added, it gets everything the rest of the archive has: every word on every page can be searched, it has an English summary and topics, its weaving drafts are listed, and it appears under Recent Additions. Contributors are credited on the document's page, unless you prefer not to be, and so is the archive or library a document came from. We may not be able to add everything we're offered, but we'll always let you know.

Not sure whether something qualifies? Copyright can be complicated. If you have something interesting to share, contact us anyway, and we'll help work it out.