A memory of September 11 at the Library…
As events unfolded on September 11, 2001, patrons were coming to the Lenox Library to express their shock, and to obtain information from library staff about the attacks themselves, as well as ways to help those in need. At the time, the library had a few workstations for accessing the Internet, and staff used the relatively new search engine, Google.
The company’s engineers realized that the most popular searches were not producing the needed information. Google began to aggregate a list of news websites and other resources, first on its homepage, and then on a separate news page. Within a year, Google News was born.
See the progression here, from the WayBack Machine at Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010917010819/http://www.google.com:80/
Google homepage on 9/17/2001 includes a link for “News links and support information regarding attacks” under its Search box.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010919131314/http://www.google.com:80/
By the 19th, “News and Resources” has a red white and blue ribbon.
https://web.archive.org/web/20020528141346/http://news.google.com:80/
Google News in beta mode, evolving as a news aggregator.
The home page for Google on September 11, 2001, from “The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine” by Richard W. Wiggins http://web.mit.edu/6.033/2002/wwwdocs/papers/9-11.html#author