1) Visit the September 11 Digital Archive.
2) Read the Brier and Brown article manuscript, accesible through the password protected Readings tab.
3) Respond to this post with at least one substantial (2-3 paragraph) comment comparing the goals of the project with your experience on the site. What are the strengths of the site? The weaknesses? Make at least one specific reference to the reading and include page numbers when you do so. Read the comments that have come before you and consider them in your response.
4) Report back (in 2-3 sentences) on what you learned in class during the group activity (discussion of immigration experiences) either on their post that was due 5/11. If they didn’t do the assignment, respond to my post that appears immediately below this one.
After reading and reviewing the Brier and Brown article manuscript and comparing it to the result of their intentions, it seems that the collaborative forces of historians and media preservers has been close to accomplished. Reviewing the archive site one notices the expansive amount of resources and media that have been preserved pertaining to not only the attacks of 9/11 but to its after math, the effects it had on those directly affected and more importantly, comprehensive material on how the catastrophic events affected people on a global scale.
In regards to the usability of the online archive, although there is a surplus of material, data, pictures, video, and unique memorabilia, the navigation of the site should be made more user friendly. While going over the videos, I found it challenging to view many of them and once I had gained access the quality of the videos wasn’t up to standard. If I were to be documenting and recording such a momentous event, I feel that it would be of great importance to have digital media that is clear and easily accessible to someone with little knowledge of the site’s function. I do however feel that the goal has been accomplished and that this is a vital tool for future historians and a wonderful resource for the general public.
The manuscript mentioned that if a historian in the future wanted to know what exactly happened during 9/11, they should be able to refer to this site: “after decades of depending on
librarians and archivists to gather, catalog, and make accessible the vital data that we
needed to do our work as historians, we decided that we would now have to function in
a new role: as archivist-historians “(4). This demonstrated that they tried to hold as many information as they could because they did not know which one is valuable and which one is not.
The website is very organized. All of the emails are in one category and all of the documents are in another. A visitor feels comfortable to view this site because they can contribute stories or information themselves so they can be a part of the archive. However, this can also be a negative aspect because a person can simply come up with a fictitious story and have that mixed up with real evidence and stories. This can damage the archive and have the future historians unintentionally write false reports.
The Brier and Brown manuscript reveals the intentions of the website 911digitalarchive.org. The plan was to create a website that “capture, archive, and preserve digital materials related to the September 11 attacks” (4). Through the usage of a public site, people who go on the website are allowed to post up their stories and recollections of September 11. As Anita stated, the website strives to “hold as many information as they could.”
The website accomplishes the plan very well. As Anita also stated, the website is organized to allow for easy access. The website also allows for research and additional contributions as the manuscript states. The site also provides for external links, allowing historians now and in the future to research on 9/11 much more easily. The archive provides a healthy mix of facts, recollections and insights.
The goals of the reading were fulfilled to a great extent in the site. The were a large number of real images, some reconstructed videos and personal stories from people whose lives has been affected by 9/11 one way or another. The interviews were very informative. The site was not uber complicated and was easy to navigate. As Avi, stated the videos were not so clear and were of low quality.
Also I was able to add my personal “story” (which was totally false)without any filtering of any sort. Although it may not be shown on the home page of the website it was still added to the archives.
The personal stories maybe biased to an extent. “To be sure, much of the material
submitted to the archive was riddled with jingoistic, racist, xenophobic, and messianic
attitudes and opinions” Pg12 of the reading. But this would give historians an accurate understanding on how people were feeling. Overall I think the objects were met.
The goals of the reading were evident upon reading the manuscript; the manuscript wanted people to have easier access to information pertaining to 9/11 and post-9/11. In this sense, the website truly succeeded. The website has a LOT of information on it. It includes pictures, videos, stories, links, as well as many other features. I thought it succeeded a lot with the links. The links made it so researchers didn’t have to browse google for other information. Furthermore, as stated in the manuscript, interviews were taken on people from different cultures and dialects right after the 9/11 attacks. This included, but was not limited to American-Arab and Chinese interviews.
Nevertheless, I do believe it has some disadvantages. Nothing is perfect. This includes this website. Though I loved the sheer amount of information included on the website, I disliked the way you can include stories. As stated by nearly everyone above me, it is very easy to include a false story. As stated by Anita, “a person can simply come up with a fictitious story and have that mixed up with real evidence and stories.”
From my group activity, I learned a lot about how immigrants impact the United States. As a secondary-immigrant, I did not know that the United States (particularly in New York) included so many immigrants. After my interview with Carmen Hu after, I realized the extent to which immigrants have shaped this country. We are nation of immigrants coming from every nation in the world!
As stated by everyone so far, the goal of the manuscript was to make information clearly available to people. The website demonstrates the extent to which this goal has succeeded, and indeed, it HAS succeeded. The website has many pictures, images, videos, and links on it. In other words, it has a lot of information on it! I agree with Benjamin and Anita that the website was very easy to navigate. Still I agree with Abraham that the videos were not up-to-date.
Furthermore, I agree with the following disadvantage of the website; the stories that are being posted on the website can be false and made-up. This is clearly evident when you try and post a story yourself. Unlike wikipedia who annually reviews all posts before making any additions or subtractions to its information, this website can not do that – how is someone going to find out if a story is true or not? Still, I like the idea of allowing people to post their stories for other people to see and spread. All in all, the advantages of this website clearly outweigh its disadvantages.
Benjamin (My group immigration discussion) = I learned a great deal of information from my group discussion. I learned that we all come from many other nations across the globe. I overheard many other peoples interviews and was shocked to hear that nearly everyone is an immigrant or secondary immigrant.
The sites main goal is to reach out to the people so various individuals can contribute to the site. On the manuscript it states “They also discuss the effort to balance the development and deployment of an open and accessible Web interface for individual online submissions of digital materials with targeted outreach to and solicitation of contributions from
members of underrepresented communities, including the Arab, Chinese, and Latino communities”.Its nice to see that they wanted various cultures to participate on the website.
On page 5 of the manuscript “Our initial goal was to quickly get online a free public space for people to contribute their stories and to allow them to deposit the rich array of digital evidence that they had
created personally or received electronically, all of which would help future historians document what ordinary people saw and experienced on and immediately after September 11. “Its nice to see that the makers of the website really thought about the people who had been affected by this tragedy. They wanted to site to be a place where people could relate with one another,portray there struggles and express how they delt with the whole situation. Theres so many websites which provide the public with facts of 911 but there wasnt a place for the people to come together and reflect there feelings. People could also post various digital media to the public, created before, during or after the attack.
The one weakness of the site that I can also agree on with Anita is that false information could be posted, and future indivduals wouldnt necessarily know if they could rely on the site.
Trying to make people fifty years from now understand the impact of such a catastrophic event it not an easy task. My generation will never understand the brevity and setbacks of World War II or the desperation and struggles of African Americans during the Civil Rights movement. But we do understand 9/11. We can understand where we were when it happened or what we were doing at that time, we can understand our parents getting us from school or from some our parents not coming home at all, we can understand the the paintings and the murals and the candles and flowers for every citizen that lost a mother, a brother, a local policemen, or a firefighter.
A book, a picture, a video, or a website can begin to draw the accounts of what has happened, but will people fifty years from now actually know what has happened-No. The article states on page 5 “What about the attitudes and perspectives of “ordinary” people, here and abroad, especially those deeply affected by the attacks, those who were not necessarily
inside or near the towers or in the Pentagon or in Shanksville, but whose lives were nonetheless profoundly affected by what happened on September 11?” Only the people who have undergone the experience can paint the picture of how it has been. While people fifty years from now will actually never feel how our generation have, but personal accounts is the best way for them to. The website succeeds in doing this. The only downside, like Abraham they need to make it easier to access and navigate, the need to make it more appealing, and they need to make it more organized. I feel things were jammed together and for this time it is not up to date especially the videos. Way more work needs to be done, but the idea is a great one.
The website is nicely designed to make the public fully cognizant of the 9/11 incident and also for viewers to add information pertaining to the incident, based on their experiences. “Our initial goal was to quickly get online a free public space for people to contribute
their stories and to allow them to deposit the rich array of digital evidence that they had
created personally or received electronically, all of which would help future historians
document what ordinary people saw and experienced on and immediately after
September 11.”(Page 5)
Strengths of this website are the visual aids and the personal experiences, which would make a viewer have a better understanding on how the incident impacted the lives of many. Weaknesses would include the fact that the website lacked information, like my colleagues had said. However, it is still packed with relevant data that could be of a use to a researcher.
Overall I think that the website is something that will be very useful in the future for mainly personal experiences. For facts, I don’t think that the website will be of much use in the future because there aren’t many facts that cover the story and everything that happened. When I compare this website with other technology that we have today, the website doesn’t add up to much… for example, if in 100 years this website was the only thing left of 9/11, historians wouldn’t learn much from it; they would only know how it affected some people.
I think that the website showed a great deal of visuals throughout the many different stories and impacts that 9/11 had on people of America and New York City. I don’t think that the actual layout of the website was attractive, and it wasn’t that easy to use (as Avi mentioned). And when facts were mentioned throughout the website, it was PDF documents… that caused me not to even want to read them because it seemed like an essay or something.
The point of the website is to the keep the presence and the reality of what occurred on September 11, 2001 alive forever, especially for generations to come who didn’t witness the event. It uses first person accounts and images, among other things, to describe in as much detail as possible, what happened that tragic day and how it has affected the United States in the long run.
According to the manuscript, its purpose is to “preserve and present via the Internet digital resources related to the epochal events of a decade ago.”(1) I feel this purpose was successfully accomplished. There are many points of view in the website that helps a person who wasn’t present understand, from the bystanders who witnessed it, to surviving fire fighters. The only negative I would say, as others have mentioned, is the lack of information presented. Although there are vivid accounts and images, the information about what occurred and its impact on the neutral side is lacking (besides in the FAQ section).
Both sources provided somewhat varying information on 9/11 but I found the website to be a bit more effective than the manuscript mainly because of its content. It contained FAQ’s and emails from various people who were affected by it or heard something about it. It definitely gave visitors an informal and emotional aspect of the 9/11 incident. Its amazing documentation of recollections of the incident from not only people in NYC during the incident but also in other areas of the country that were bombed or hit. It is also interesting that the website mentions Chinatown which is closest to Ground Zero and how it was affected and also a link that had interviews with the people there.
The manuscript also contributed “extensive efforts to collect, and preserve aspects of September 11″(Manuscript p.3). Although the manuscript gives the readers a general idea about archiving and the information found regarding 9/11, it contains knowledge about how important this information will be for historians fifty years from now. Both these sources will play a big role for historians in the future who weren’t alive to witness this tragic event.
Websites and manuscript content the information about 9/11 incident. I also found website more informative and interesting comparing to manuscript because website have more information and visual display. Websites has different links that can help to answer questions regarding the incident of 9/11. Both the source will be very useful in the future to know about the history of Sept 11.
The September 11 Digital Archive’s main goal, according to the manuscript, was to create a platform where people could contribute their personal experiences and add digital evidence related to the 9/11 events so as to assist future generations and historians in understanding the events, impact, and importance of this decade old catastrophe.(p5)
The website has met this goal well as there are numerous evidences sufficient for a well-rounded perspective to this event, and the organization of the website is up-to standard. However, the website may be a little outdated as the interface is not state of the art and the graphics are mediocre. The Beta version, however, is a slight improvement but still not up to the mark of what modern day websites can be. Though it’s important to note that just the fulfillment of the main purpose of the website as an archive is sufficient for the creators and perhaps users alike.
I’d also like to agree with the comments above that criticize the website for being gullible to false information. However, filtering each and every information for accuracy will be a higly impossible and time-consuming act.
September 11 is a time in US history that will never be forgotten by those that was here to experience it. However many people wasn’t at ground zero at the time of the attack but heard about it from the news, Internet, people and etc. The main purpose of the website was to “capture , achieve and preserve digital materials related”(4) to that day. The purpose how’s a good sound due to the amount of future individuals that will like to get an understanding of what actually happen on the morning.
Visiting the sites my main things was where do I start. It wasn’t really pretty just real plain. I look at this as a weakness. I would of think that the developers or graphics designers would of made it look nice and engaging but instead everything was just there.
Reading the peoples stories of that day was the strength. They gave live witness of individuals some in the building and others in they everyday life. But each store explain how this was a normal day like any other until the plane actually hit. The first story I read the lady actually work in tower one her retracing that day gave me a visually in my mind of how it was for many last hours on earth.
It gave me a sense of fear for many. This site will help future generations understand why we was at war and how a group of terrorist came and change this city like never before. And because of that this website has actually fulfill it’s purpose.
“….at the City University of New York Graduate Center to preserve and present
via the Internet digital resources related to the epochal events of a decade ago” (pg 1) is what the goal was initially and they have successfully fulfilled that goal in the September Digital Archive. The archive is organized and split into sections according to their type, which many of my classmates have said in previous posts. It has many sources and information on the event and I believe this will serve as a great source on the topic.
As for disadvantages I agree with the previous posts; the possibility of someone making up a story on the event will decrease the accuracy of the website and some video links are broken so that hinders the quality of the information being given. In addition, I also agree that the website could be more aesthetically pleasing and more engaging with its audience.
It is clear that the goal of the site was to inform many about the devastation that the 9/11 left behind. Making use of the technology people had in their hands ( cells phones with recording and videotaping capacities.) during such difficult times where even emergency crews could not reach certainly have proven to be invaluable tools . Tools such as this website that not only gives people a site where not there insight to what happened in the towers as well as in the pentagon but gives others a forum to give people their version of what actually happened without actually having to tell anything to anyone, Writing on this site gives people a way to freely speak on what happened to them not only during this catastrophe but even afterward. It is true the down side is that stories posted could be fabricated but isn’t everything. Even the weather forecast is presented differently by not only the channel, by the reporter himself. I think it has to do with the fact that some people see things through rose colored glasses while others do not. So as with everything on the web, you must proceed with caution. And be careful of what you ask for because the response can be from anything out of this world.
Moving towards the digital archives as ones we learned about congress library is clear indication of declining in using books, which personally I found putting such valuable information (data, imaged, documents) exposed to hackers to damage it somehow. However, we can denied the fact that This can be a safeguard for people to come and for historians to derive the urban, population, ethnic, and people’s views and changes that followed such devastating event if only the historians can be the ones who can sift others information so can the credibility of the cite and it’s role diverge from bios involvement and this must be taken in consideration as the article stated “To be sure, much of the material Submitted to the archive was riddled with jingoistic, racist, xenophobic, and messianic attitudes and opinions”.(pg13) Even though, as the reading stated that the digital evidence are not only the historians’ evidence; but still, It can also be a reference, somehow, for a political sigma to look behind the event and conclude the government response in order to prevent such horrible attack in future. No doubt, as the reading stated that the historians already collected (or participated) their facts and there must thousand books written in this subject. I believe that the strength of the Cite is much made it open and welcomed everyone to contribute in this project of digital archive, which present a massive information, data, pictures, videos, opinions, stories, and documents merging all together to serve, not only out reach the public, but also to educate the public now and the people to come about the event.
The website is definitely impressive. While surfing through the site I was able to explore the chronology of the attacks as well as government’s response. It also had many images which I felt were especially successful in covering the magnitude of the attacks on Sept.11, 2001. Furthermore the personal stories and accounts made for educational and emotional experience. The website is very easily navigated and has multiple links to other sites allowing for very in-depth research.
One of the weaknesses I thought was that it did not really offer opinions from different ethnic groups, this was also expressed by the website developers—“We would need to undertake additional targeted outreach to particular ethnic and national communities if the archive were truly to encompass a wide range of individual and collective responses to the September 11 attacks” (Brier 7).
Over all the website is an excellent resource and tool for students, scholars or anyone for that matter to conduct research to the topic of September 11.
As many have said before me, the main goal of the site as stated in the Brier-Brown article was for people to contribute their story’s, which in turn would help future historians document what ordinary people saw at that time. It’s also said on page 2 that 9/11 was different then all other historical events because it was the first digital event. That meaning that in the 2000 era, the word spread through e-mail, pictures, online etc..
The site does what it was meant to do by sharing stories and photos and also shows how 9/11 was the first digital event that had happened. It shows it not only by telling what had happened but also by the website alone. This website is a digital archive that shows not only how 9/11 was a digital event, but also by being one itself.
I do agree with many of my colleagues that this cites may serve historians, any other generations to come , at the same time I do not agree with others who stated that anyone can defectively would include a story to ruin the cite information. I believe in page 13 of the article, it stated that the “To be sure, much of the material Submitted to the archive was riddled with jingoistic, racist, xenophobic, and messianic attitudes and opinions” so they are aware of such issue, and the historians participating in this project must set already a standards in how to sift the stories and the information provided to them.
According to the Brier and Brown Article Manuscript, there was a very distinct and straightforward purpose for the 9/11 Memorial Website. As the historians and developers gathered and collaborated, there remained one common theme, preservation. “The meeting also revealed a striking spirit—often at great emotional and physical expense—to act individually and collaboratively, a willingness that would result during the next year or two in extensive efforts to collect, preserve, and present aspects of September 11” (3). The developers credit the digital media of a decade ago of providing accurate and in-depth accounts of those affected by the terrible attacks.
They wanted to take it one step further and reach out to those thousands of citizens who were not “directly” affected that dreadful morning. “What about the attitudes and perspectives of “ordinary” people, here and abroad, especially those deeply affected by the attacks, those who were not necessarily inside or near the towers or in the Pentagon or in Shanksville, but whose lives were nonetheless profoundly affected by what happened on September 11?” (5). I feel that this is a great approach to documenting one of the most significant events to ever occur on American soil. Even though these attacks were carried out in NYC, Washington, and Shanksville, it is important to recognize this a national event as well.
In terms of strengths of the website, there are a few i would like to highlight. First off, it is very easy to navigate. This is definitely a plus because even those who are not as “tech-savvy” as the rest of us can get the same experience. Another strength would be the FAQs and 9/11 link sections. These are great aspects of the site for those people who want answers and those who would like to continue further research on the topic. There were, however, a few flaws with the site. There is no such thing as the perfect website and in my opinion i would add a section about the Freedom Tower currently being built at Ground Zero. This skyscraper will prove to be a significant piece of NYC history for decades to come and should be discussed on the site.
911digitalarchive.org is a digital memorial, which is befitting for the fast-paced, Internet addicted society we live in today. It allows easy access for any visitors to share their stories, post videos or pictures, and any other input on 9-11. However, this poses a problem. As many have previously said in comments above, the fact that “any” visitor can post anything to the site without a filtering system, not to mention the difficulty to differentiate true to false stories in general, devalues the credibility of the website.
Another problem is more of something that cannot be controlled. Fortunately, 9-11 will be an event of the past, but over time, the site might become neglected and forgotten. For example, the interactive 3-D museum website we once used in class for a separate blog was very dated by the time we used it in terms of graphics even though it had been the latest technology at the time it was created. Of course, history cannot be changed, thus the information would remain the same, but the already basic looking graphics might become outdated and the links could become broken.
Even though there are some issues, the website is overall full of positive features. It provides families who were affected by 9-11 the opportunity to connect and share within a community that caters to the remembrance of their loved ones. It’s also a great tool for researchers to study the event. There’s a tab full of useful links that direct you to things that will help you.
Brier and Brown’s article states, “At this juncture we had to address the inequality of access to digital media” (page 7). I think this is very true. As mentioned before, the site makes it easy for people to come and share, which means it is probably more diverse and unbiased than most gathered statistics report or news. I think this advantage could be used to further enhance the site by taking the information of the visitor such as their location and age, without anything too private, and put together a statistics chart or graph to see possible correlations between datas.
After browsing through the 9/11 Digital Archive website, I see clearly that the vision set forth by the creators was met completely. Historians did not want to catalog 9/11 solely based on news articles; they wanted a more humanistic approach. (“The foundations staff was concerned that… the stories of individuals who had personally experienced the events… would be lost to future generations.” p. 4) The website was made to put real stories from people just like you and me who were personally affected by the tragedy down in history.
When I first visited the website, I was met with a heartbreaking image of a mural for the dead. There are stories from all different ages, races, religions, and age groups. It’s great that they have such diversity on their website. I don’t see any weaknesses to be honest. I feel like this website is a good outlet for those affected and a vital source of information for historians or just regular people around the world.
The 9/11 Digital Archive serves its purpose as a mean of preserving the catastrophe and its effects on the people and the nation itself. Although not the most user-friendly, it does entail massive details and information of the attack, including the emails, audio files, video files, and witness testimonies. However, the future generation may have a hard time relating to the event, due to the fact that they were not affected in one way or another by it.
All in all, the website itself was very organized and neatly compiled, and would make a great information source for historians. The option of adding a story anonymously, however, is a bad addition to the site. Despite the seriousness of the event, this can attract internet “trolls” to post bad information and stories, which would be a shame.
The September 11 Digital Archive definitely meets the goals set in the Brier and Brown manuscript to preserve a compilation of digital media, personal stories and emails concerning the terrorist attacks on September 11th. I think this archive will prove to be extremely useful to future historians in order to get an accurately vast view of the event. I think future psychologists will also benefit from this archive in studying the human response to such traumatic events via the personal emails and stories. Future students will have plenty of material to look over when studying 9/11 in school.
I think the website is strong but as Katherine pointed out could quickly become outdated since web design is advancing rapidly. Overall, the layout of the website is simple to understand which is a major strength. The FAQ’s section is definitely helpful and the biggest strength I think is the loose censorship. Brier and Brown state “much of the material submitted to the archive was riddled with jingoistic, racist, xenophobic, and messianic attitudes and opinions. Yet precisely these problematic aspects of the material offer historians a uniquely complex vision of the events that occurred on that clear morning in September 2001.”(12) I agree that it’s important to include even hateful submissions to truly capture the effects of 9/11.