Sept. 3, 2002 – September 11 marked the first time a major tragedy struck America in "Web time," or when the Internet started to reach critical mass, which most people mark as 1996. After Sept. 11, the Internet has allowed people around the world to write about, provide resources, and come to grips with the terrorist attack in a very public way not previously possible. Here is a short guide to some of the sites we would put in a digital time capsule for the historians of the future.
If you want to start with a grand overview, then visit the September 11th Web Archive, which is a co-project of the Wayback Machine, the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Library of Congress, and webarchivist.com. The archive is a huge collection of Web sites that concern 09/11/01, and covers areas like press, government, charity/civic, school/education, individual/volunteer, etc.
Another great archive is Sept11news.com, which presents many of the haunting images that people recall from the day of the attack, as well as a collection of the front pages of the world's newspapers the day after the attack, screen shots of images from many of the country's broadcasters, and a look at how the Web covered the story as well. There's also a timeline of the events in the first few months after the attack.
The New York Times produced one of the most wrenching, yet inspiring documents about the day of the attack, "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died," an almost minute-by-minute recreation of the final 102 minutes of the World Trade Center Towers. It includes the stories of many of the people trapped on the top floors, along with the award-winning celebrations of the lives of those who didn't make it down. While it's hard to read sometimes, it also reminds us of just how brave people can be in the face of terrible circumstances.
If you'll forgive us blowing our own horn a bit, the Christian Science Monitor's "A changed world" provides every story written by Monitor's correspondents about the attack and its aftermath. You'll also find the special Web-only projects we've created over the past months that deal with the war on terrorism.
The Avalon Project at Yale has pulled together many of the official documents, statements and press releases from Sept. 11 until late March, 2002. While it lacks the emotion and intensity of many of the Web sites devoted to Sept.11, it's an absorbing and detailed examination of the official government response to the attacks and then to the war on terrorism. A great companion site is the Annotated Bibliography of Government Documents Related to the Threat of Terrorism & the Attacks of September 11, 2001, created by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. It's a vivid testament to two things: the Internet's ability to present information in a new and immediate format, and the determination of the United States to share that information. To quote the librarians:
Unlike so many of the nations of the world, the United States considers fundamental the right of its citizens to know what their government is doing, the logic behind its actions, and the ramifications of its policies. To this end, our government produces copious quantities of informational materials that are freely accessible to the public through libraries and the Federal Depository Library system. This bibliography presents a sampling of the materials available through the Depository system, via the Internet, or both.
There is another side to the way the government is dealing with the events of Sept. 11, one that leaves more than a few American citizens feeling uneasy. Human Rights Watch has a large body of documents and reports about the alleged abuses of civil liberties committed by the US and other governments.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted two fascinating studies this year that explored how Americans used the Internet to help them overcome the grief of Sept. 11. "How Americans Used the Internet After the Terror Attack," and "The Commons of the Tragedy: How the Internet was used by millions after the terror attacks to grieve, console, share news, and debate the country's response."
On the day of the attack, and in the following week, people flocked to the Internet as never before to gain information on what happened, to research terms like "Al Qaeda," and to see if there was a way they could help. The strain on the 'Net was enormous (many news sites, including ours, experienced severe problems dealing with the rush of traffic). But the site that really took a pounding was Google.com, the Internet's leading search engine and its most popular site. Richard Wiggins wrote a report on how Google handled the deluge of requests. Google at first advised people to 'turn on their TVs. But as the report says, Google is part of the new media, not the old, and by the afternoon of the attack, Google had created news pages to help surfers get the information people wanted.
Time Magazine offers a stunning collection of photographs by award winning photojournalist James Nachtwey taken the day of the attack. "Shattered," is a collection of 14 haunting images that capture the surreal quality of the entire day. It's just one part of the larger "Sept. 11: A Nation Remembers," that is Time's look at the past year.
Finally, a huge site, filled with hundreds of links: Academic Info's September 11 site. If you want to find information on Sept. 11, the war on terrorism, or events that may unfold in the coming months, then this is another resource you won't want to be without.
There are many, many other sites devoted to the events of September 11th, and even more will be unveiled in the coming days. If you find one that you would like to share with us and our readers, please feel free to forward it to me at csmbandwidth@aol.com.
