{"id":223387,"date":"2025-10-09T13:04:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=223387"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:28:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T20:28:36","slug":"congressional-papers-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/09\/congressional-papers-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton Library brings Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s congressional history online"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"congressional
The Hawai\u02bbi Congressional Papers Collection at Hamilton Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s American Archives Month, and the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa\u2019s Hamilton Library<\/a> is playing a key role in expanding public access to congressional history archives.<\/p>\n

Hamilton Library received $200,000 in federal funding to help digitize the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Congressional Papers Collection<\/a> as part of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal (ACDAP<\/abbr>)—the first-ever online platform to bring together congressional archives from across the country. Led by West Virginia University<\/a> (WVU<\/abbr>) Libraries, the project aims to make these important but scattered records freely accessible to the public while supporting civics and history education for K–12 classrooms.<\/p>\n

Preserving Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s congressional legacy<\/h2>\n
\"matsunaga
Sen. Spark Matsunaga with Reps. Cecil Heftel and Daniel K. Akaka at a 1982 campaign rally. (Matsunaga Papers, Hamilton Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The funding will allow Hamilton Library to digitize thousands of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>-related congressional documents, including more than 800 photos from the papers of Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, speeches from Sens. Hiram L. Fong and Spark Matsunaga, and materials from Reps. Thomas P. Gill, K. Mark Takai, Neil Abercrombie, Pat Saiki and Kaialiʻi<\/span> Kahele. The project is expected to be completed by December 2026.<\/p>\n

“This project takes some of the most sought-after documents from our library\u2019s congressional collections and makes them accessible to the world,” said Dawn Sueoka, congressional papers archivist at Hamilton Library\u2019s University Archives & Manuscripts Department<\/a>. “It also helps researchers to understand the work of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s members of congress in the context of the archives of their colleagues, like former (House) Speaker Carl Albert and Sen. Bob Dole.”<\/p>\n

Suyeoka and project partners were featured in a video overview<\/a> for educators produced by the Dirksen Congressional Center. She also plans to collaborate with the Â鶹´«Ã½M\u0101noa<\/a> College of Education<\/a> next summer to develop a high school curriculum based on Hamilton Library\u2019s contributions to the portal.<\/p>\n

\"suyeoka
Dawn Suyeoka (left) with David Mattson, grandson of the late Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, and his wife, Elizabeth, at Hamilton Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Expanding national access to civic history<\/h2>\n

The ACDAP<\/abbr> project helps remove long-standing barriers to accessing congressional materials, which—unlike presidential papers—are spread across many institutions. Danielle Emerling, associate director of WVU<\/abbr> Libraries\u2019 West Virginia & Regional History Center, said the effort helps people better understand Congress and makes more archives and civics education resources available.<\/p>\n

Hamilton Library has participated in the ACDAP<\/abbr> initiative since 2023, alongside other national partners.<\/p>\n

Read more at Hamilton Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> is helping make Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> congressional history accessible to the world through a national digital archives project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":223463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[95,225,207,128,1363,9],"class_list":["post-223387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-education","tag-history","tag-library","tag-manoa-library","tag-manoa-research","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-hamilton-congressional-papers.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223387"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223543,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223387\/revisions\/223543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}