Calling Cards

Seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, commemoration of September 11th continues. The September 11 Digital Archive is showing a beta version of its new website, which includes exhibits created in collaboration with museum partners such as Ground One: Voices from Post-911 Chinatown and September 11: Bearing Witness to History from the Smithsonian. Web-oriented archives have created september11.archive.org with the cooperation of the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive and the Pew Internet & American Life center. These two digital archives are preserving and curating different aspects of the experience that were recorded in the auditory and Internet cultures of the period. What is interesting to me is the emphasis on the local in these exhibites, even though the event involved many kinds of transnational networks and migrating social actors.