The Charlie Archive documents a global response

How does a library capture a global debate about freedom of the press? The attacks on the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in January 2015 by Islamic extremists provoked a worldwide conversation through all forms of media. Harvard librarians are collecting and organizing a diverse array of visual and textual materials such as blogs, cartoons, tweets, banners, and graffiti that represent the multiple viewpoints articulated in the aftermath in a digital archive. The Charlie Archive at the Harvard Library will be open and available to all Harvard Library users in January 2016, and is soliciting submissions via its website.

The Charlie Archive includes a diverse range of materials containing opinions on ethics and satire, religious intolerance, and the political and social role of the media expressed in different languages. More than 1,000 individual items have been collected so far from donors from all over the world. In addition to the donations, librarians in the Western Languages Division at Widener are actively identifying materials to be added to the collection, which is growing every day. Its formation represents an opportunity to preserve unique, ephemeral materials such as social media content and all other types of fleeting print and digital output that otherwise would not be saved for the future.

The response from the people of France has been enthusiastic. Several articles published in well-known French media outlets have resulted in a flood of donations. “The French people are very happy that an American university, and Harvard in particular, is building an archive around the slogan ‘Je suis Charlie’/ ‘Je ne suis pas Charlie’ [translation from French: ‘I am Charlie’/ ‘I am not Charlie’],” said Lidia Uziel, head of the Western Languages Division at Widener Library. “They hope that the archive will contribute to a better understanding in North America of what Charlie Hebdo stood for and the significance of ‘press freedom’ in France.”