Virginia Tech Artifacts

April 10, 2008 12:38 PM

A Million Voices.Staff members of the University Archives at Virginia Tech are working to catalog and make available the more than 87,000 letters, poems, posters and artifacts that arrived at the school in the wake of the April 16 shootings. Dubbed The Prevail Archives, the website has a database with images of some of the items.

Initial Metafilter post on the shootings.

posted by marxchivist (11 comments total)

Nice, thought I don't quite understand how to use the database effectively.

I wish we'd been able to do this sort of thing with the incredible amounts of stuff our school received after the Challenger explosion. The library had to dedicate an entire room to hold it all. I expect (hope) it's all still there somewhere...
posted by schoolgirl report at 12:47 PM on April 10, 2008

Hey, this totally cool, thanks for the link. I high recommended browsing the archive, there's a lot of moving stuff from people all over the country.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:52 PM on April 10, 2008

I found the "browse" tab works best for using the database.
posted by marxchivist at 12:57 PM on April 10, 2008

I wish we'd been able to do this sort of thing with the incredible amounts of stuff our school received after the Challenger explosion.

Concord High School?
posted by ericb at 1:11 PM on April 10, 2008

Yes, Concord High. I was a student when that happened.
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:20 PM on April 10, 2008

Hmm.

I understand the reason why people send "stuff" to people when tragedies happen. A simple donation of money is seen as crass, and not showing feelings. A physical object provides physical acknowledgment that thoughts are with you, that people care. And yet, I have grown more anti-materialistic over time, and the notion of someone giving a car hood to assuage emotional trauma seems absurd. People have empathy, and they emotionally need to help those in trouble, and with communications greater than every, our empathy exceeds our grasp. And no one likes to admit to helplessness in the face of the terrible. And both sides feel better because of it, so the overhead of organizing such collections is worth it.

I'm reminded of an Onion article.
posted by zabuni at 1:51 PM on April 10, 2008

Sometimes I wish the grammar nazi in me would be quiet long enough to appreciate things like this without screaming, "YOUR in our prayers, wtf?".
posted by puppet at 2:44 PM on April 10, 2008

puppet, never stifle your inner grammar nazi, but have you ever noticed how little appreciated corrections in grammar are? Like hated?
posted by Cranberry at 3:19 PM on April 10, 2008

Yes, Concord High. I was a student when that happened.

Wow. It obviously had a direct impact on you and your schoolmates.

I will always recall that the news stations (local -- WCVB, WHDH and WBZ -- and possibly national networks, as well) had video crews recording live from Concord High. The students were assembled, watching the launch together.

Images that have been seared into my mind forever:

(1) Christa McAuliffe's family in the bleacher stands confused and dumbstruck as to what those trailing plumes of smoke meant.

(2) Concord High students watching and then slowly coming to realize (as the rest of the world did) what was transpiring.

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" ^*

posted by ericb at 3:55 PM on April 10, 2008

See also The April 16 Archive: Collecting and Preserving the Stories of the Virginia Tech Tragedy. This is sad.
posted by LarryC at 9:31 PM on April 10, 2008

CNN story.
posted by marxchivist at 7:40 AM on April 16, 2008