This process continues today, and will remain ongoing as long as new panels are submitted and new blocks sewn together.

Most panels are accompanied by letters, biographies and photos, all of which speak to the experience of life in the age of AIDS, documenting the effect on those lost and those left behind. These "documentary" materials, when combined with the Quilt panel images, make a rich tapestry of information - a legacy to future generations.

The next goal of The Archive Project is to analyze and catalog each panel of the Quilt for both visual and textual content using descriptors developed with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This information will be combined with the letters, biographies, and photos submitted by the panel makers into an accessible and globally available database. We hope that soon, The Archive Oral History Project will collect stories and testaments from panel makers on video.

Besides the HIV prevention education benefit of such a database, we can only begin to imagine the many ways such a resource might be used. A student in the rural South exploring her heritage might search for all the panels that contain kente cloth, read about the memorialized persons' lives, and access video interviews with the panel makers to learn about the significance of the African patterns. An art historian might browse through the Quilt panels to discover when and how late twentieth-century cultural mileposts, such as computers and compact discs, first appeared as visual images in American iconography. A researcher might use the panels and letters to study the grieving process. The possibilities are inexhaustible.

The Archive Project ensures that the Quilt and those it remembers live on. The database and oral histories will chronicle the pandemic in very real, very human terms for generations to come. They will serve as a permanent memorial to those who have died, inspiring future generations with their valuable lessons about our lives, loves, community and society.

For more information about the AIDS Memorial Quilt Archive and how you can help support this effort, please send an e-mail to archive@aidsquilt.org.