Dole Archives and American Congress Digital Archives Portal partners awarded funding to expand portal, add civic and history education initiatives

August 15, 2025 - News

The Dole Archives is one of three founding members of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal, and recently received federal funding to expand the utility, usability, and capacity of the Portal in the next phase of its development. Photo by Jackson DeAndrea.

LAWRENCE, KS – The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, one of three founding members of a national consortium of congressional archives created in 2021 and based at West Virginia University Libraries, will receive up to $200,000 in federal funding to expand the utility, usability, and capacity of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal in the next phase of its development.

The allocation, a portion of $1.5 million in total funding, will be distributed by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. It will allow staff at the Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives and Special Collections to digitize and contribute to the portal more items from the congressional archives of Senators Bob and Elizabeth Dole, and to expand the Institute’s K-12 civics and history education programs and outreach throughout Kansas.

“Growing the Portal from an idea five years ago to where it is today – nearly 7,500 items from 20 collections at 6 partner institutions digitized and available online – has been incredibly gratifying,” said Sarah Gard, senior archivist and head of collections at the Dole Institute. “These collections are vital for understanding Congress and our democracy. We are really excited about bringing these resources to new audiences and expanding our educational outreach throughout Kansas to K-12 audiences.”

Unlike presidential papers or similar government records, congressional collections are geographically dispersed across the nation at institutions of all shapes and sizes. Scholars, educators, students, and the general public have open access through the Portal to thousands of civically important primary resources—including documents, photos, and audiovisual materials—created by the legislative branch and about public policymaking throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Going beyond the study of Congress and its role in American government, the value of these archives lay within their capacity to illustrate the country’s social, cultural and political development narratives.

The award will support digitization of selected materials from the Dole Archives, including creating full-text transcripts of manuscripts and audiovisual materials, making them accessible online for researchers with disabilities. Funding will also support the installation of a new digital repository for digitized materials, allowing the Dole Archives to quickly make more content available to researchers. In this phase of the project, all member institutions will contribute more than 8,000 manuscripts, audiovisual assets, and photographs.

Additionally, the award supports the Dole Institute’s civic education initiatives, which annually reach thousands of students across Kansas. Over the next year, the Institute is hosting workshops for students participating in the National History Day contest, providing them opportunities to develop and enhance their presentations using materials from the Institute and other institutional project partners.

The Dole Institute is partnering with WVU Libraries and 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 Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia, and the University of Hawai’i Manoa Library.

For more information about the American Congress Digital Archives Portal or the Congressional Archives Education Project, visit congressarchives.org.

About the Dole Institute
Inspired by the leadership legacies of Senators Bob and Elizabeth Dole, and the enduring civic contributions of the Greatest Generation, the Dole Institute of Politics strives to promote a new era of leadership that uses politics to bring people together through opportunities that emphasize bipartisan cooperation, public service, and civic education and engagement.

For More Information:
Jackson DeAndrea, Dole Institute of Politics
jackson.deandrea@ku.edu
(785) 864-4900