It’s American Archives Month, and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hamilton Library is playing a key role in expanding public access to congressional history archives.
Hamilton Library received $200,000 in federal funding to help digitize the Hawaiʻi Congressional Papers Collection as part of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal (ACDAP)—the first-ever online platform to bring together congressional archives from across the country. Led by West Virginia University (WVU) 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.
Preserving Hawaiʻi’s congressional legacy
The funding will allow Hamilton Library to digitize thousands of Hawaiʻi-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 Kahele. The project is expected to be completed by December 2026.
“This project takes some of the most sought-after documents from our library’s congressional collections and makes them accessible to the world,” said Dawn Sueoka, congressional papers archivist at Hamilton Library’s University Archives & Manuscripts Department. “It also helps researchers to understand the work of Hawaiʻi’s members of congress in the context of the archives of their colleagues, like former (House) Speaker Carl Albert and Sen. Bob Dole.”
Suyeoka and project partners were featured in a video overview for educators produced by the Dirksen Congressional Center. She also plans to collaborate with the UH Mānoa College of Education next summer to develop a high school curriculum based on Hamilton Library’s contributions to the portal.
Expanding national access to civic history
The ACDAP 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 Libraries’ West Virginia & Regional History Center, said the effort helps people better understand Congress and makes more archives and civics education resources available.
Hamilton Library has participated in the ACDAP initiative since 2023, alongside other national partners.
