An open letter to Google, regarding the recent earthquake in Japan.

The tragedy along the eastern coast of Japan's main island - Honshu - reminds us all that in such cataclysmic events posterity is significantly altered, lives changed and yesterday is immediately made irrelevant.

People Finder for the survivors of this tragedy is an extremely useful and immensely pragmatic tool for everyone, and we should all be grateful for your actions.  Yet, Google is much more than a search tool.

Save Street View, Google Maps, Earth images, geotagged Youtube videos and Picasa photos (that individuals agree to donate) from the areas devastated.  Save them so that they and the rest of the world will have a permanent record of what life was like before, during and after the earthquake and subsequent recovery.

As an archive, it preserves a part of Japanese history while also allowing many people, whose lives were permanently and destructively altered, to be remembered.  It gives historians the opportunity to recreate a physical and digital models, and present a virtual environment that can be researched and studied.

As an archive, it memorializes but also provides educational opportunities, and therefore, please capture and save your data.