NEH Awards West Virginia University Libraries Funds to Expand Online Portal for Congressional Archives

From a WVU Announcement:

West Virginia University Libraries has received a nearly $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand the American Congress Digital Archives Portal, the first-ever online portal bringing together congressional archives from repositories throughout the United States.

“The personal papers of members of Congress are vitally important for understanding Congress as an institution, public policy development, and the many diverse stories that comprise the American experience,” Danielle Emerling, Congressional and Political Papers archivist at WVU Libraries and project director, said. “We are honored to have support from the NEH to make more congressional archives available to everyone.”

The NEH awarded WVU Libraries the initial grant to launch the project and create the portal in 2021.

[Clip]

WVU Libraries is partnering with other institutions that hold congressional archives, including the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma, the Dirksen Congressional Center, the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at University of Georgia, and the University of Hawai`i Congressional Papers Collection. The project also includes an advisory board composed of leading individuals in the areas of congressional archives and scholarship.

The project 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. For researchers, collections may be difficult to use, both because of a lack of travel funding and varying levels of description in congressional archives.

[Clip]

This grant project builds on an NEH foundations grant awarded in 2021, which resulted in a prototype portal and included archives from WVU Libraries, the Dole Institute of Politics, and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education. The project has also received support from LYRASIS and the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress.

Learn More, Read the Complete Announcement (636 words)

Direct to American Congress Digital Archives Portal

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Awards, Digital Collections, Funding, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Open Access