"Faces of the Dead Fill the World Trade Towers at Twilight" - Kieron Dwyer and Mark Chia-rello, 2001. Published in the DC Comics collection "9-11: September 11th 2001."
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath had a profound effect on the Library, forcing it to balance its mission to serve Congress and the nation with the need to secure its staff, visitors, buildings and collections–all in close proximity to the U.S. Capitol. The Library responded by revising evacuation plans and improving emergency communication with the staff as well as with local and national law enforcement agencies. While the Library experienced a temporary decline in visitors and in-person reference immediately following the attacks as concerns for security in the Washington area escalated, the number of requests received by e-mail and telephone, along with "hits" on its Web site, rose sharply as the Library implemented alternative methods for making its resources available to the public.
The discovery of anthrax in the Hart Senate Office Building led to the decision to close the Library for precautionary environmental testing from Oct. 18 to Oct 24, 2001. No evidence of anthrax was found, but U.S. postal service to the Library was suspended until early March in order to implement new methods for handling and irradiating the mail. This five-month interruption of mail delivery was felt most sharply in units that receive outside mail directly. Congress approved a supplemental appropriation of $39.1 million in emergency security funds that allowed the Library to process mail off-site, pay for staff overtime and contractors to process mail backlog, and provide hazardous materials training and testing. These funds also covered the cost of establishing an off-site alternative computer facility to secure the Library's electronic resources, to procure special freezers and other supplies to preserve water-logged materials, and to address a $7.5 million shortfall in fee receipts by the U.S. Copyright Office, which receives (mostly through the mail) approximately two-thirds of its budget from fees for services.
In addition to safeguarding its staff and collections, the Library drew on its prodigious resources to provide Congress and the nation with timely information on terrorism and related subjects. Within hours after al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked commercial airliners into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, the Library began documenting and recording for posterity the attacks and the worldwide response. For example, the Serial and Government Publications Division began to build a historic news collection of thousands of U.S. and foreign newspapers containing reports and photographs of the tragedy and its aftermath. The Prints and Photographs Division began a focused campaign to collect a broad range of pictorial images that both factually documented and creatively interpreted the horrific events. The Geography and Map Division searched for maps and geographic information to satisfy requests from Congress, federal agencies, and the public for up-to-date and accurate cartographic information ranging from maps of countries in the Middle East to aerial views of Ground Zero. The Library's six overseas offices (Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, Islamabad, New Delhi, and Jakarta) also played a critical role in acquiring material documenting the events of September 11 from an international perspective.
Apart from its continuing acquisitions activities, the Library initiated special projects to document the events of September 11. The American Folklife Center sponsored a September 11, 2001, Documentary Project that encouraged folklorists across the nation to record on audiotape the national response to the tragic events. The Library also launched a September 11 Web Archive in collaboration with the Internet Archive, www.webArchivist.org, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Between September 11 and December 2001, the Internet Archive collected and indexed 40,000 Web sites and 500 million Web pages. The September 11 Web Archive received the "Site of the Year" award from Yahoo!.
A woman (left) fleeing lower Manhattan in the wake of the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center; firefighters in a group (center) and singly (right) at the site after the attack. - Todd Maisel, Steven Hirsch and Mary Altaffer
The national crisis highlighted the Library's comprehensive international resources and the expertise of its area specialists, whose knowledge of the languages and cultures of the Muslim world was critical in providing much needed assistance to members of Congress, the executive branch, the media and the general public. The Library's Near East Section was flooded with requests for information about Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Islamist groups and Muslim countries. A search of the Library's collection by one Arab World area specialist led to the discovery and translation of a 93-page book written by bin Laden and published in Cairo in 1991. Titled (in translation) "Battles of the Lion Den of the Arab Partisans in Afghanistan," the work describes how bin Laden and the Mujahedeen fighters planned and executed major attacks against the occupying Soviet army in Afghanistan.
Other key discoveries in the Library's collection included a unique two-volume English translation of Afghanistan's laws within the Law Library's collection of more than 2.4 million items, as well as a 1999 Federal Research Division report (located on the Library's Web site) titled "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," which predicted that members of al Qaeda could conceivably crash an aircraft into the Pentagon, CIA headquarters or the White House.
A Bengali poster calendar (left), issued shortly after the attacks, reads, "If each Muslim resists America, then victory is certain for them. Osama Bin Laden"; a modified American flag that flew over the site near Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after being hijacked.
The Library's yearlong effort to document the terrorist attacks culminated with a multimedia exhibition titled "Witness and Response: September 11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress," which opened in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building on Sept. 7 to commemorate the first anniversary of the tragedy. A series of lectures–discussing the unique materials related to September 11 acquired by the Library–and concerts was held in conjunction with the exhibition.
An aerial view of the damaged Pentagon building - U.S. Government Photo
