Relics of the Boston marathon

Archivists in Boston used to handling documents ranging from budget records to minutes of city council meetings, along with an occasional file dating to the city's 17th-century founding, have spent the last year processing thousands of sneakers, T-shirts and letters. 

These are the mementos left behind at an impromptu memorial built at the site of the 2013 bombing attack on the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and injured 264 at the race's crowded finish line. 

The makeshift shrine began in the days after the April 15 attack, as visitors and residents left tributes along the metal barricades erected by the police to fence off the site as they searched for clues about the bombers. Next week, several hundred of the items - including four wooden crosses memorializing the three who died in the blasts and a university police officer who was shot dead a few days later in a related incident - will be displayed at Copley Square, this time inside the library for an exhibit that will run from April 7-May 11 2014.

Several hundred of the items - including four wooden crosses memorializing the three who died in the blasts and a university police officer who was shot dead a few days later in a related incident - will be displayed at Copley Square, for an exhibit that will run from April 7-May 11 2014.