COLLECTING AND CONSERVATION ARE THE HEART OF ALL MUSEUM ACTIVITY. Books, posters and graphic objects have been collected ever since the Kunstgewerbemuseum was first founded, and industrial design has also been collected over a period of some years. A comprehensive electronic system giving access to all the museum's collections is under construction and will be gradually introduced.                     Originally the Kunstgewerbemuseum of Zurich had a single collection, planned as an aid for the teaching of industrial design. Besides graphics, it included book covers, textiles, ceramics, glass, works in metal and wood, and puppets. Over the years separate collections developed. Non-European items, most of them taken over later by the Rietberg Museum, were prominent. When the Bellerive Museum was founded in 1968, the Applied Art Collection focusing on Jugendstil, textiles and ceramics was accommodated in this new branch. The Poster Collection, the Graphic Collection, and the Design Collection started up in 1986 are still in or near the main building. The Museum of Design Zurich is thus the only Swiss institution that constantly and systematically collects posters, graphic art and design objects as illustrations of 20th-century cultural production of both an everyday character and an artistically more ambitious nature.                   COLLECTIONS NEED MORE THAN SPACE At present, the space for a permanent display of the inventory is lacking. Shortage of space can, however, also be an opportunity to put the material to other uses, as in exhibitions, research projects, and publications on the findings. This means ongoing reevaluation of the goals underlying the collections. Collecting always entails making a selection: not everything can or should be preserved. The rising cost of restoration and conservation must also meet environmental requirements. In addition, technology keeps improving. Integrated computerization of all the museum collections is in porgress and will be introduced in stages.