Remembering with the September 11 Digital Archive

During this day of remembrance, we urge you to browse through some of the materials collected by the September 11th Digital Archive, a collaborative effort between RRCNHM and the American Social History Project at the City University of New York to preserve and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. Officially launched in 2002, the Archive is among the earliest online collecting projects that championed the crowdsourcing of materials from anyone effected by September 11 and interested in sharing their stories, photographs, digital art, audio recordings, documents, or videos.

The site’s blog is highlighting special collections within the digital archive, groups like the Madison Area Peace Coalition that organized soon after September 11 and collaborated with other groups with similar objectives. These source materials offer researchers an opportunity to trace the organization and growth of one post-911 political movement.

With over 150,000 digital items, the Archive is large and has become increasingly challenging to manage. To help preserve this valuable collection of unique user-generated content and specialized collections, the project team is working with a Saving America’s Treasures grant to stabilize the current infrastructure and move all of the collections to the Omeka platform. Digital Archivist Jim Safely, is spearheading those efforts and is making progress by carefully and slowly transferring and testing the migration of every item in the project to ensure that it will be preserved and more accessible for years to come.

Stay tuned to the September 11 Digital Archive blog for additional collection highlights and updates on the migration process.