Slowly but surely, Jean Bischoff and her crew of workers and volunteers are making sense of the 4,000 boxes housed in the basement of the Dole Institute of Politics.

The boxes — stored at a constant 60 degrees, at 45 percent humidity — hold papers, photographs, tapes, gifts and other materials from the political career of Bob Dole, the former congressman, senator and presidential candidate.

The Dole Institute gave about 20 visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the archives Friday. Another tour is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. April 23.

So far, Bischoff, the institute’s senior archivist, and her team have processed materials in about 500 of the 4,000 boxes.

“You can’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed,” Bischoff said. “You kind of have to go at it with a teaspoon.”

The bulk of the boxes were delivered to Kansas University in 1997, shortly after Dole announced his papers would be stored there. They were housed in the Spencer Research Library until the Dole Institute was constructed in 2003.

Most of the papers aren’t currently open to the public. Those that are include press releases, photographs, speeches and 119 boxes of papers from when Dole was a congressman, from 1961 to 1968. The House papers were opened earlier this year although they weren’t originally scheduled to be opened until 2006 to 2016.

Bischoff said she’s hoping Dole moves up the schedule for release of other materials, which are scheduled for opening from 2011 to 2051, depending on the category.

Jean Bischoff, senior archivist at the Dole Institute of Politics, shows off a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings, photos and letters related to Sen. Bob Dole in the institute's downstairs archives. About 20 people attended the walking tour of the facility on Friday.

“These are very stringent restrictions,” she said. “We’re hoping Sen. Dole, as time goes on, will loosen things up.”

The House papers have been processed and put into a database for searching. Archivists also are in the process of scanning 12,000 press releases, which eventually will be available online.

They’re also compiling information on 25,000 photographs housed in the archives.

“Our hope is to get a finding aid on our Web site, so researchers in Washington or Idaho or wherever can search and call us to get a photograph,” said Judy Sweets, an archivist.

Partly because of the access restrictions, the archive so far has been used only by a handful of students and visiting scholars. Dole’s office also calls often to access old papers and other information.

6News video: Visitors get behind-the-scenes look at Dole Institute More stories about the Dole Institute

Bill Lacy, the institute’s director, said Dole’s upcoming book, “One Soldier’s Story: A Memoir,” is a good example of what could eventually come from the archive. Dole relied on letters he sent home while in the Army in writing the book.

“There’s going to be a lot of history coming out of the Dole Institute as time goes on,” Lacy predicted.