ATLANTA -- On a recent Saturday morning, Eduardo Torres, an electrical engineering student at Georgia Tech, instructed a group of 9- and 10-year-olds from The Howard School here how to make paper. The students dipped wood frames stretched with mesh into a plastic tub filled with water and pulp. At the end of the process each proudly held a 4-inch-square piece of paper.
The instruction was part of an outreach program at the newly opened George W. Mead Paper Education Center , part of the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at the Georgia Institute of Technology . This 5,000-square-foot museum, not far from the High Museum of Art downtown, houses the world's largest collection of paper and papermaking artifacts.
How large is large? The museum boasts a collection of more than 10,000 tools, papers, machines, and manuscripts. About one-fifth is on display at any time.
``What distinguishes us from other collections is we have things from all over the world. The oldest artifact in our library is from 4000 BC and our oldest book is from 700 AD," said Cindy Bowden , the museum's director.
``We have researchers coming from everywhere. For example, some Korean scholars recently came to inspect a Korean paper mold that's no longer available in their own country," Bowden said.
Indeed, strolling through the permanent collection is like traveling back in time and across the globe while learning about the history, art, and science of making paper.
The museum is divided in two . One side of the light and airyentrance atrium leads to the permanent collection. Here, the exhibit opens with forerunners of paper, like Sumerian clay tablets, bark books from Indonesia(inscribed with wonderful text and drawings recording antidotes for poison and tips on the art of divination) , leaf books, and papyrus. Also in this category are delicate Chinese paintings on pith paper ( erroneously called ``rice paper " ) that were brought to New England by sailors in the 19th century.
China is credited with the invention of paper, about 2,000 years ago. The collection presents the history of paper like a story that unfolds chronologically. Through artifacts and text presented in beautifully lighted display cases, one can see how paper evolved as a material in Japan,Korea, Tibet, Europe -- including Germany, England, and Italy -- India, and America.
One of the more stunning presentations is a darkened room with a collection of backlighted watermarks, formed like thin relief sculptures, that seem to hover in the air. There's a lifelike image of Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation in 1953 , and a convincing madonna and child straight out of the Renaissance.
Paper historian Dard Hunter (1883-1966) collected the core artifacts of the museum. Hunter was a devotee of the Arts and Crafts movement. On a trip to London in the early 20th century, he became fascinated with European papermaking and printing methods. Setting up shop in New York, he printed his first book in 1915 and shortly after devoted his life to researching and writing about handmade paper and printing. He has a connection to New England, opening his first museum at MIT in 1939. (It later moved to its current home in Atlanta via the Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton, Wis. )
On the other side of the atrium, the Paper Education Center opened in the fall of 2005. Covering the history of papermaking from 1295 to the 1850s, it features molds and antique machines that were used to process pulp to make paper, like the ``pulp lifter," a wood en contraption that looks like a miniature Ferris wheel. (Its function is to scoop pulp from vats to keep the fibers from tangling into knots.)
There's also plenty of information about individual plants and what kinds of paper products they produce. For example, the long fibers of abac a , known as banana leaf, are used in rope, tea bags, and high-quality writing paper, whereas shorter eucalyptus fibers are used in tissue papers and Bibles.
Also on this side of the museum is the classroom that offers a hands-on experience to schoolchildren, and to adults at special Saturday workshops.
``We're excited to announce that this August, Giorgio Pellegrini , the director of the Museo della Carta in Fabriano, Italy, will be here working on a collaborative project, a virtual exhibit titled `Papermaking and the Beginning of the Renaissance,' " Bowden said.
The world of paper, it seems, is still vibrant, evolving, and traveling across countries and cultures.
Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at Georgia Tech
50 0 10th St. NW, Atlanta
404-894-7840
www.ipst.gatech.edu/amp/
Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.
Contact Necee Regis, a freelance writer in Boston and Miami Beach, at neceeregis@yahoo.com. 
