“Active and Vital Resources”: A Thematic Analysis of Congressional Collection Policies

This article describes the process of updating and broadening the collection policy of the Ohio Public Policy Archives (OPPA) at The Ohio State University Libraries to include a more diverse representation of policy and policy making on the national level. The author conducted a thematic analysis of peer congressional collecting policies to determine whether a notable difference exists between language describing the acquisition of congressional collections and language describing the acquisition of public policy collections. The thematic analysis highlights new areas of focus and reinforces the research value of congressional collections. OPPA's updated collection policy built on the identified themes to further illuminate the research value of congressional collections while also making room for the addition of new perspectives on the U.S. policy-making process.