NIU Archiving Darkest Hour-- Part 3

Last part of April 12th Chicago Tribune Article on the archiving of the horrible event on Feb. 14th.


The archiving of horrible events is fairly new, with people making their own memorials. According to Peter Wosh, "archivists have just begun to go out and gather these these types of memorials in the last decade. The huge memorials that sprung up around New York and online after the September 11, 2001, attacks jolted the field even further in that direction."

Archiving has also been made at the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC, and the Oklahoma City bombing site.

"It has moved the profession into taking a more proactive role in documenting tragedy instead of the traditional archival role of accepting things after the fact," said Wosh.

The NIU archives have a box with agrowing colection of internet items people have submitted including one NIU student speaking of "death sweeping through like a calloused fist" in a poem.

There is also a folder marked "The Ugly Side" which contains press releases from the Kansas church saying the killings were God's punishment for homosexuality."


INSTANT MESSAGING

In addition, there is also a collection of printed instant messages, with all the truncated words and misspellings.

One wrote "were u close?"

The friend answered "About 500 feet. I was comming out of my psyc class and i got a vm [voice message] about the shooting."

"hear anything?"

"then i wass walking annd saw people screaming cryinng and bleeding."

KEEPING EVERYTHING

So far, the NIU archivists are keeping everything, whereas the ones at Virginia Tech had to be more selective because a dean limited the collection to 800 cubic feet, about the size of a large moving van.

Putting limits on something like this is not in the best interest if you ask me. Of course, it is hard to say how much use future historians will make of the material and it does cost to hold onto the items.

David Chapman, Texas A&M's archivist has had only two requests in the last ten years to see the 400 boxes of records from the bonfire collapse.

"NIU archives its darkest hour" by Steve Schmadeke.

This was an excellent article on a new form of history and archiving. I imagine it won't be long before universities begin offering degrees in this sort of history. --RoadDog