Hamilton Library helps with online congressional archives project
October is American Archives Month, which aims to raise awareness of archivists’ work to preserve, catalog, care for, and provide access to materials that matter to people and their communities.
Hamilton Library’s Hawai‘i Congressional Papers Collection is helping to do just that, with its contributions to the American Congress Digital Archives Portal – the first-ever online platform to compile congressional archives from institutional repositories throughout the U.S. and provide open access to these largely untapped resources via a single tool. The project, led by West Virginia University Libraries, is expanding the portal’s utility, usability and capacity, and equipping K-12 educators with resources and tools for civics and history education.
WVU Libraries received $1.5 million in earmarked spending in 2025 to expand the Congressional Archives for Education. In addition to Hamilton Library, they are partnering with Carl Albert Center at University of Oklahoma, Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, Illinois, Dole Institute of Politics at University of Kansas, and Russell Library at University of Georgia. These institutions will collectively add thousands of items from congressional archives across six states and develop educational resources for K-12 civics and history curricula.
This recently-released video overview of the project for educators produced by the Dirksen Congressional Center features interviews with project partners, including Dawn Sueoka, congressional papers archivist in Hamilton Library’s University Archives & Manuscripts Department.
Hamilton Library received $200K of the funding to digitize thousands of its documents and make them available through the portal, including more than 800 photos from the papers of Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the speeches of Senators Hiram L. Fong and Spark Matsunaga, the speeches of Representatives Thomas P. Gill and K. Mark Takai, Representative Neil Abercrombie’s co-signed letters, Representative Pat Saiki’s Washington Reports, and Representative Kaialiʻi Kahele’s speeches, press releases and newsletters. This adds to material that has already been digitized during an earlier phase of the project, including all of the speeches of U.S. Senators Daniel K. Inouye and Daniel K. Akaka.
“This project takes some of the most sought-after documents from our library’s congressional collections and makes them accessible to the world,” said Sueoka. “It also helps researchers to understand the work of Hawaiʻi’s members of congress in the context of the archives of their colleagues, like Speaker Carl Albert and Senator Bob Dole.”
Sueoka plans to work with the UH Mānoa College of Education next summer to develop a high school curriculum about Hamilton Library’s contributions to the portal.
The American Congress Digital Archives Portal addresses many practical access barriers to using congressional archives. Unlike presidential papers, which are centralized in one location, congressional collections are geographically dispersed across institutions large and small. Presently, the portal provides scholars, educators and the public with easy access to geographically dispersed collections and approximately 10,000 civically important documents about the legislative branch and American public policy.
“[Congressional records] are vital for understanding Congress — the largest and most diverse, but arguably least understood, branch of government,” said Danielle Emerling, associate director of WVU Libraries’ West Virginia & Regional History Center and Modern Congressional and Political Papers Collection archivist. “We are honored to lead this expansion and outreach project for the portal and make more congressional archives, as well as civics and history curriculum, available to all.”
The expansion phase of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project builds earlier phases that received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lyrasis Catalyst Fund and the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress. Hamilton Library’s Congressional Papers Collection, digitization lab and Desktop Network Services department have participated in the project since 2023.
For more information about the American Congress Digital Archives Portal or the Congressional Archives for Education project, please visit congressarchives.org.
