Subject files, 1963-2012, consist of the files central to Senator Inouye’s Washington, D.C. office operations. The files are arranged chronologically, then alphabetically by subject, based on a filing scheme that the office used. This scheme changed little throughout the years, so that the files fairly consistently fall under the same rubrics. Major subjects include: Administration, Agriculture, Associations and committees, Aviation, Congressional matters, Constituents, District office, Economics, Education, Federal government, Finance, Foreign relations, Health and welfare, Military, Natural resources, Pacific Islands, Public relations, Public works, State government, Travel and tourism, Veterans, and others. The files consist of correspondence with constituents and government officials, background information on issues, reports and other information sent to the Senator, and photographs and oversized items like maps that have been separated out of the files. Also included are some subject files from the Senator’s Honolulu office, which are listed at the end of the series.

Note that when the records were created, they were not absolutely strictly divided by year. So even though the files are arranged by year or year ranges, files from other years can be found within those ranges. For example, the files on public works from 1980 contains many records dating back to the 1970s. These are left as is, in order to preserve the original arrangement of the records as much as possible. For similar reasons, there are two sets of files from 1965-1969. For unapparent reasons, these files were grouped separately, so they have been left that way, so that there are records labeled “1965-1969,” and others labeled “1965-1969 (series 2),” with overlap in subjects between the two.

Records from 1983-1992 were microfilmed and then destroyed, so those records are accessible in that format, as well as digitally. Please consult the series on microfilmed records for more information. Also, note that records from 1993-1994 were prepared for microfilming, but apparently were never actually filmed. Again, see the series on microfilmed records for more information on the preparation of records for microfilming.

The subject files included many publications that were sent to the Senator for informative purposes, and unless the Senator or his staff made annotations in them, the large majority of these publications have been removed from the collection, especially if they are already available elsewhere in the library.

Finally, note that any paperclips in the records that were used as page markers have been replaced by stainless steel paperclips, so these do not need to be removed from the records.