The Julius Schloss Collection consists of Julius Schloss’s complete portfolio of published and unpublished compositions, sketches, studies and analyses. In addition, it contains documentary artefacts, including correspondence, newspaper, magazine and journal clippings, concert and competition programs, media reviews, and photographs, that chronicle both the early life of this German-Jewish composer in Europe and his later days in exile in Shanghai and the United States.
The content of the collection pertains to several lines of historical research: First, Schloss’s close relationship with Alban Berg as a personal assistant and chief copy editor, as well as his interaction with other contemporaries in Vienna during the 1920s, may offer new insight in studies of the Second Viennese School. The items of Bergiana, including a handwritten Baudelaire poem by Berg which served as a “secret program” to the Lyric Suite and a selection of correspondence surrounding Berg’s last wishes for the Lyric Suite score, are particularly valuable. Second, Schloss’s ten-year exile in Shanghai, documented in assorted correspondence, programs, reviews and miscellaneous artefacts, may provide a new account of the Shanghai generation. Finally, the continuation of Schloss’s life in the United States as a struggling composer and teacher bears witness to the difficult conditions for the American émigré population after World War II.

Fonds consists of many examples of Szyk's illustrations in the form of prints, commercially-reproduced illustrations, and drawing studies, as well as printed ephemera. Examples of Szyk's illustrations reproduced on commercial products or other items include postage stamps, posters, book jackets, and calendars. The fonds contains ephemera related to or containing Szyk illustrations, including newspaper clippings and issues of magazines featuring articles on Szyk or reproducing one of his designs. Box 10 contains original drawing studies, mostly for the Book of Esther. The fonds also contains materials related to an exhibition on Szyk at McGill University Library held in 1954.

The Charles Reiner Collection consists of correspondence, newspaper reviews and clippings, performance programmes, personal documents including legal material, photographs, writings, published and unpublished music by Reiner and other composers, audio and visual recordings of Reiner and other performers, books, and awards. Of particular interest is correspondence from Rudolf Serkin, Alfred Cortot, and Kurt Waldheim; legal documents from both before and after Reiner’s immigration to Canada; and the extensive collection of programmes and newspaper clippings that document Reiner’s extensive performance career.

The Grierson Collection was assembled by the Communications Department, McGill University, by soliciting, from a variety of sources, documentation on Grierson himself, on the institutions for which he worked (particularly the National Film Board of Canada), and on the history of documentary film. The core of the collection is from the Film Board, and consists of audio-visual production materials for films on Grierson and related topics; supplementing this are collections of documentation, and some personal papers (correspondence, notebooks, speeches), mostly obtained from associates of Grierson.

The collection consists of correspondence, research files, manuscripts, journals, and ephemera created and accumulated by writer and scholar Leon Edel, who was notably the editor and biographer of Henry James as well as Edmund Wilson.

Consists of a notebook Robson kept as a student at the Banting Research Institute at the University of Toronto from June to September, 1930. The notebook comprises over 60 manuscript pages, plus 31 manuscript pages attached to the end, 1 loose leaf of manuscript medical notes, approximately 50 ink drawings of various sizes of experiments, 26 black and white photographs pasted in, including a photograph of Sir Frederick Grant Banting in his office, the Banting Research Institute and its faculty, and experiment apparatuses. Also includes 13 mimeographed pages (pasted in) containing 12 different experiments, the printed programme for the formal opening of the Banting Institute on 16 September 1930, and 9 newspaper clippings pasted in related to the opening of the Institute.

The Donald Mackey Collection consists of the Donald Mackey and Renaissance Singers of Montreal complete portfolio of CBC broadcast programmes and scripts. In addition, the fond contains documentary artifacts including correspondence, concert programmes, photographs, audio recordings and special projects that chronicle Mackey’s career as conductor of the Renaissance Singers of Montreal and his life in Montreal. This includes information about his professorship at the faculty of music of McGill University, his active involvement in Montreal’s vibrant church music scene as organist and conductor, his appointment as University Organist Emeritus, etc.

The F.R. Scott Collection contains documents pertaining to many differents aspects of F.R. Scott's life and career. His early political involvement in CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the political party at the origin of the creation of the federal New Democratic Party [NDP]) constitutes one series; his interest in poetry another one. Also some important legal actions are documented here about language and education rights in Quebec schools. The last series contains more personal items probably gathered for an official commemorative service: tributes, press clippings. Includes F.R. Scott's passport for Montreal's Expo 1967.

Collection consists of an illustrated manuscript containing a map and brief guidebook to Paris landmarks, created by Nicole Allardet probably during the 1940s or 1950s. The item is inscribed to Vivienne Horne. A folded booklet on heavy grey paper, the guidebook contains twelve panels, ten of which feature a gouache illustrated vignette of a Paris landmark and a short handwritten description in white. The landmarks include the Jardin du Luxembourg, Opera House, Eiffel Tower, the river Seine, the Bois de Vincennes, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées, Montmartre, and the Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. In the centermost two panels is a simple map of Paris showing the landmarks depicted.

The collection consists of seven volumes of Elliott's personal diaries, which were bound together, at his own expense, after their completion. These diaries cover the five-year period that Elliott spent serving overseas, primarily in England. The contents of the journals include handwritten entries, sketches and watercolours that were either executed in the pages of the diary or pasted in, and photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, playbills, menus and other paraphernalia that were also pasted into the diary. These serve to document both the development of the war and Elliott's personal experiences. The diaries are generally in chronological order although there are places, particularly in the last three volumes, where the diaries have been bound out of sequence.

The fonds also contains several folio sheets of photographs and clippings regarding Elliott's career.