Collegiate Times

Seth Powers, Alumnus of 2007, IDST major sifts through the archive from April 16th.

Correction: This story has been modified from its original version. — "Tech creates digital memory bank for April 16," (CT, Feb. 14) had a mistake. The third paragraph should read, "This Internet database is supported by the [College of] Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Collections of articles, poems, blogs, and pictures are being compiled to create a digital database for April 16 in the effort of healing and expression.

Two weeks after April 16, the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture realized that not much was being done to organize all the pictures, articles, interviews and poems that expressed the sentiments of students and community. The group started working with GMU's Center for History and New Media and the Tech University Libraries to pull together materials. Using Omeka, a new web platform, they were able to share their collection online.

This Internet database is supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and is under the normal operating budget. There are now 1,400 objects in the archive.

The stories and photographs are displayed at www.april16archive.org.

"This is a site where people can pause to reflect on the tragedy and heal," said Brent Jesiek, the manager of CDDC.

The archive is completely online, and is currently accepting items that are in digital format. There are submissions from the Dave Matthews concert, VT Engage and of the memorial. Also, international stories (still in their native languages) from Japan, Romania, Mexico and South America are displayed on the Web site.

The archived materials are available to everyone, unless the author asked for their story to be private, if they lack sufficient ownership rights, or if the material is offensive.

Students, along with staff, helped over the summer to bring together as much information as possible.

But it was no easy process.

"Students struggled with the emotional part of this project," Jesiek said. "For some it worked as a coping strategy, but for others it was still very traumatic."

There is also the issue of authenticity and copyright infringement. The staff is working to ensure that the photos and stories put on the online database are authentic, reliable and not copied.

Similarly, the Library of Congress is working with University Libraries in dealing with the physical artifacts from April 16.

"They (Library of Congress staff) met with us for several days," said Gail McMillan, director for digital library and archives at Tech, "and we were given advice about how to deal with materials that had been exposed to the elements (mold, rain), such as mementos put on the impromptu memorial on the Drillfield, and they offered guidance in handling the emotional aspect as well."

Such artifacts needed careful screening so they could be digitized and then properly stored in the Tech Libraries. Much effort is needed to identify, preserve and analyze the vast quantity of material that was recovered. Rutgers University has provided assistance as well.

Furthermore, in May 2007 the U.S. National Science Foundation gave a 12-month grant of $199,993 to the department of computer science for this long-term consolidation project. The contribution is going toward data mining, visualization and analyzing of materials that will be put in the archive. Tech is hoping for an extension on the one-year grant so staff can continue this important project. These records will also be digital, but will pull every document from April 16 "under one umbrella."

"We welcome people to contribute to this collection," said Edward Fox, a professor in the Department of Computer Science. "We're taking everything from any source."