Tag: digitally archive

05/20/11

9/11 Archives

I personally like the concept behind the 9/11 digital archive, honoring and remembering the victims that died that day. I agree with Jonathan on many aspects, I like the idea that people can post memories about their experiences on 9/11, but I find it less sincere in some aspects when I see someone post a picture of themselves from a trip they took to New York 20 years ago in front of the towers and then saying I feel your pain. The fact is that unless they were in the area or knew someone who was in there on 9/11, you really can feel the way we did. Being in New York all my life, I personally don’t like the fact that Ground Zero has become a tourist site, I think that is just wrong. I do however like the fact that people care enough that they do post about it, I just wish there was a separate section they could do it in. I also like the fact that the archive is filtered enough for spam, which shows a genuine concern and passion about remembering those who died.

I think one thing the site could use is a digital memorial, such as the names and pictures of the people who died there that day. I think that those people should have their own section, and only friends and family of those people should be able to post there, perhaps directly under the pictures. I also think the photos should be organized into specific photo albums depending on what the pictures are about. Overall I really do like this site and I’m glad something like it exists.

02/2/11

Your “NO PRIVACY” Afterlife

Back in the day, when there was no computer or any other technologies, historians had to collect the historic facts from the words of people or the heritage that has been preserved. Recently, the Library of Congress claims that they would “digitally archive every public tweet.”(Lauren) That means whatever you have post on Twitter, including pictures, videos, status, comments, will all be archived digitally in the Library of Congress. Like what Lauren mentions in his or her article “Archiving Tweets”, Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions. Now the future historians will not need to dig through textbooks, all they have to do is to look at what the Library of Congress have digitally archived.

In the future, due to our new technology, historians will probably just get the information from the Library of Congress, and see what us, this generations have done. It is very different from the past. I remember for Chinese history, historians usually have to walk door to door to interview people who have been through any historic events. But since now, the Library of Congress has declared to archive digitally every public tweet; it is easier for future historians to get the information.

However, is everything on the Twitter relevant and true? Not really, and people will have NO PRIVACY at all. K.C. Johnson asks the question “How does the United States Government store its secrets? In shoeboxes?” If everything we have done will be observed by the government, then what about the secrets of the government, who will know the inside stories?  Finally, not only that we do not have our own privacy, it is also irrelevant to collect facts from Twitter.