SAA Student Chapter Panel Session

ARCHIVES AND TERRORISM

September 20, 2002

SPEAKERS:

Dr. Richard Cox - Professor, Archives & Records Management, University of Pittsburgh

Tom Schienfeldt - Director, 9/11 Digital Archive - http://911digitalarchive.org/

Barbara Black - Curator, Somerset Historical Center - http://www.somersethistoricalcenter.org

Dr. A. J. Plotke - Electronic Archivist, ATT/American Express

Panel speakers (L to R): Dr. A. J. Plotke, Tom Schienfeldt, Dr. Richard Cox, and Barbara Black.

What follows below are some of the key points of the panel session as presented by the different speakers.

Dr. Cox:

  • Handout: reading list re: Meaning of 9/11
  • Technologies have yielded information abundance & loss
  • Government restrictions on information access
  • Communications used to document & memorialize personal events
  • Archives are evidence not memorials, understanding the significance of the event

Tom Schienfeldt:

  • Collect information (e-mail, digital images, movies, voice mail, etc.) online commemorating 9/11
  • Website serves as a "place of remembrance"
  • Importance of appraisal and collection development policy issues
  • Ensure that all information is saved in a persistent fashion

Barbara Black:

  • Handout: Flight 93 Memorial Collection - Policies & Procedures for Collections Management
  • Managing a new type of collection - the "memorial"
  • Donated materials are "sacred"

Dr. A. J. Plotke:

  • Wide distribution of corporate technologies & networks
  • Centralization of business information
  • Importance of accuracy & currency of business transactions that need to be quickly disseminated for use
  • Unification of technology & archives through "business continuation and disaster recovery" which provides the ability to reconstruct business information
The comments of the panel were followed by a question and answer session from the audience members.

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