Top of page

Three headshots of the team of three working on this project
Left to right: Justine Criswell, Emily Poteat, and Haley Salisbury. Photos by themselves.

Spring 2023 Project: American State Papers

Share this post:

One of our spring projects this spring is one that builds on work from previous semesters working on the American State Papers.

The American State Papers is a collection of legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period from 1789 to 1838, including the critical historical gap from 1780 to the printing of the first volume of the U.S. Serial Set in 1817. This project comes from the Century of Lawmaking website that has recently moved to a more modern and sustainable format.

This group, led by Justine Criswell, is looking at each individual entry in the American State Papers and adding individualized metadata. This will allow it to be searched and browsed within our global search. There are 6,278 documents in 38 volumes, compiled into topics so the interns are able to choose a topic in which they have an interest or background. This project is on track to be completed in the next few months and we hope to have this collection released by the end of the year!

Meet the team:

Justine Criswell has enjoyed a wonderful career as a secondary art and art history teacher for 30 years and is venturing into a second career as an archivist/records manager when she retires from teaching in a few years. She has been living in upstate New York for 20 years and recently completed her second master’s degree from SUNY-University at Albany, New York in archives. Last summer, she had the honor and privilege of being a multimedia archives librarian intern at the United Nations in New York. She is enjoying spending time with her husband, abundant garden, and two beautiful children.

Emily Alesia Poteat holds a B.A. in history from Elon University and an M.A. focused on public history from Villanova University. This fall she will begin an M.L.I.S. program and focus on archives management. Emily is particularly interested in rare books and manuscripts. In her work on history, Emily delves into questions of identity and intellectual history.

Haley Salisbury will graduate with her M.L.I.S. from Wayne State University in May 2023. Her area of concentration is digital content management with a particular interest in metadata and accessibility. She has a B.A. in media arts and studies, also from WSU. Originally from Michigan, she recently relocated to North Carolina with her husband, son (soon to be sons), dog, and two cats. Haley enjoys reading, weekend trips with her family, and trying new coffee shops in her free time.

Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.

Add a Comment

This blog is governed by the general rules of respectful civil discourse. You are fully responsible for everything that you post. The content of all comments is released into the public domain unless clearly stated otherwise. The Library of Congress does not control the content posted. Nevertheless, the Library of Congress may monitor any user-generated content as it chooses and reserves the right to remove content for any reason whatever, without consent. Gratuitous links to sites are viewed as spam and may result in removed comments. We further reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to remove a user's privilege to post content on the Library site. Read our Comment and Posting Policy.


Required fields are indicated with an * asterisk.