Electronic archive of the day U.S. was attacked

Digital memories of 9/11

(CNN) -- "I'm fine." That's the first line of a Pentagon employee's e-mail message sent to family and friends after the attacks on September 11. It was the kind of message people across America hoped to get from their loved ones after the events.

And it is one of the many e-mails, voice mails, instant messages, photographs, and videos related to the attacks that the online September 11 Digital Archive is working to safeguard. "We hope to preserve the history of September 11," explains Tom Scheinfeldt, director of 911digitalarchive.org. The Web site's goal -- provide to historians an account of the first hand experiences of average citizens.

"For the first time in history really, many, if not most, of the historical record of September 11 was done on computers. All these digital objects are very fragile," Scheinfeldt said, "and without the concerted effort of historians and archivists they'll be very easily lost, and it'll be as easy as the touch of a delete key."

There are many written contributions to the archive, like the real-time wireless e-mail record of co-workers checking on each other as they evacuated lower Manhattan. And the e-mail that shows a woman's concern when she couldn't reach her mother by phone. Claudine Campbell explains, "My mom worked in DC. I live in Denver and could not get her on the phone." Her mother passed away in June of this year. "I have saved all the e-mails I could from her. We e-mailed for the rest of that day until she could leave the office."

Heartfelt shock

Another written contribution is accompanied by a startling graph. It is a record of a man's spiking heart rate as he jogged across the Brooklyn Bridge and witnessed the attacks. Scheinfeldt explained how the man wore a heart monitor to keep a digital chart of his daily workout. "You can see how, during his warm-up and the first few minutes before the attacks his heart rate was relatively low, and as soon as he heard the bang, and saw the fire and the flames his heart rate spikes, and stays there for the rest of the time he kept (the) heart monitor on, while he watched the chaos downtown that ensued."

Annotated photographs are part of the mix of materials in the Archive. One woman submitted pictures she made on the 11th in New York City around noon in a neighborhood near 7th Avenue. Sarah Court's black and white photograph of people huddled in the street is something that she said "was a recurring sight - strangers gathered around someone's car listening to the radio news reports, trying to make what had just happened make sense."

Another of her photographs is of New York City's West Side Highway, empty, no traffic-jam, with the smoke from the burning Trade Center towers in the distance. "It was such a clear, beautiful day -- you can see how sharp the contrast is in the photo," she explained in her annotation of the black and white image. "The only traffic that day was people walking north and occasional ambulances or buses full of cops barreling south."

Unforgettable images

The World Trade Center caught the eye of one man before September 11; Casey Garrigan was in New York on business. Garrigan said one particular view of the towers inspired him, so he "bought a disposable camera from a nearby stand and took the picture."

He forgot about it until the attacks. The next day he had the film developed. Garrigan said the resulting striking image of the Trade Towers, "... made me weep, and I want the world to see the beauty many of us got to see and the world will truly miss."

A new reality

One photo, made on a beautiful, sunlit day, shows a smiling, happy group on a boat in New York Harbor with the World Trade Towers and the Manhattan skyline serving as the backdrop.

But Lisa Costa-Woods' annotation is a heartbreaking, jarring contrast to the photo.

"This image is of Millie and her husband Joe in front of the Towers on September 10, 2001. We lost Millie the next day. As I watched the Towers collapse from my window at work, I couldn't believe my eyes. My mind couldn't wrap around what was quickly becoming our new reality; my heart was frozen, unable to accept that she may be gone. I still can't believe it."

Her annotation ends with a goodbye to her lost friend, "I miss you Millie. You will be forever in my heart."

Contributing to the archive

The organizers of the Archive have thousands of contributions already, but they want more. They're asking people to submit their stories, e-mails, and images so historians will have an idea of what America and the world were thinking and feeling in the days following September 11.

"It's very easy for people to contribute," said Dan Cozen, archive co-director. "we have specific forms on the Web site for different kinds of objects. The only two things we require are e-mail address and name." He said people can contribute anonymously. "Even though we take their name, it will not show up on our Web site."

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The Archive, organized by the American Social History Project at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, is funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. They are working with the Library of Congress to preserve other 9-11 Web sites as well as collaborating on the Smithsonian's "Bearing Witness to History" commemorative exhibition that opens September 11.

And the archive will soon become the caretaker for National Public Radio's Sonic Memorial, a collection of over 700 audio clips about the World Trade Center.

So far the Archive has received over 10,000 digital items, cataloged and annotated over 5,000, and is anticipating the promised acquisition of about 25,000 more. As director Scheinfeldt points out, "These kinds of things will be required... to get an accurate picture of what happened to the country and to the world on 9/11."