Constituent Mail Analysis Project

About CMAP | Use of Correspondence Management Systems by the Senate | Data Description

When the Senate began to automate the handling of constituent correspondence in 1978, several archivists and record creators expressed hope that automating (or "computerizing") mail processing would solve many of the processing and access problems posed by the voluminous mail and case work files. These barriers included the large volume of the records, the organization of the records, the inconsistency with which information about the constituents appears in the letters, the difficulty of categorizing letter content, and the time needed to estimate total quantities of mail on a given topic.

Automated constituent correspondence system files are well suited for aggregate, quantitative research. The correspondence management system records provided in electronic form by the Senate Computer Center are an important access tool, a source of significant information, and the only index to Senatorial constituent correspondence. Unlike the correspondence, itself, they can be easily purged of confidential information and therefore more quickly opened for research. Perhaps most significantly, the Senate staffers have already coded demographic and topical information into the computer files, providing a database that can be readily adapted for use with statistical database software. The Senate has provided repositories with uniform electronic databases of coded information about constituents and their interests, and these databases should appeal to researchers interested in quantitative analysis of constituent opinions.

Sam Nunn represented Georgia in the U.S. Senate from 1972 to 1996, and his papers, now at Emory University, provide an example of the types of benefits and challenges offered by correspondence management systems. CMAP has used the Nunn databases in its pilot project to demonstrate the kinds of studies that might be done using such data. CMAP focuses in particular on constituent interest in and opinions on legislative issues as expressed in their correspondence with Senator Nunn. In the future, Emory's Electronic Data Center hopes to include data from other U.S. Senators to allow researchers to compare the mail received in different offices. The current iteration of the CMAP site has two sections:

1. Top Fifteen Subtopics by Month. Researchers can dynamically generate a list of the top fifteen correspondence subtopics for a given month and then view a map showing the geographic distribution of the constituent correspondents. These lists are based on the subtopic field in the correspondence management system files. (Please see the description of the data for more information about the structure and content of the database.)

2. Analysis of the mail received regarding the 1991 Gulf War. The entries for constituent letters received by Senator Nunn regarding the war have been segregated out of the database to create a discreet and manageable data set for analysis. Researchers can dynamically create graphs, maps, and charts using the following variables: date (month/year), constituent opinion (pro/con/other), and geographic location (county).

For additional information about CMAP or about the Sam Nunn papers, please contact Dr. Naomi Nelson, Director, Special Collections & Archives Digital Archive, at speccollref@emory.edu or Dr. Joel Herndon, Director of the Electronic Data Center, at data@emory.edu.