Collection consists chiefly of an album of photographs and clippings compiled by Cecile (Burroughs) Masson. Captions date the photographs to between 1915 and 1940, with one earlier photograph from 1883 that depicts Cecile and Rodrigue Masson's wedding. Many of the personal photographs depict members of the Masson family taken in Terrebonne, Quebec (where the Masson family home was located), in Ottawa, and during travels to Italy, London, the south of France. There are 28 leaves of full page plates of travel photographs from France, Italy, and Africa. Also included in the album are postcards and newspaper clippings. One series of postcards depicts architecture in Terrebonne, Quebec. The clippings include a letter to the editor written by L. R. Masson (Mrs. L. A. Globensky) and published in the Montreal Star, 1939. Other clippings relate to the S-Plan, a bombing campaign by the Ireland Republic Army, in 1939, as well as the British royal family. The album is half bound in faux black morocco and pebbled cloth boards with the initials C. M. stamped in gilt on the front cover. A caption at the head of the second leaf reads "This album is for mother from Grace", with "mother" crossed out. An inscription on the first leaf reads "This is for my dear daughter Cecile. Many happy memories of the past - affectionately from Mother." The collection also includes two loose black and white photograph portraits, one of which is inscribed to Aunt Cecile.

The fonds consists of books and other materials about Black people in history and contemporary society which Roy States collected from his teenage years to the end of his life. The materials are primarily English-language works produced during his lifetime, and the majority of them are from Canada or the United States. The physically largest series within the collection (Series B, Monographs) consists of 679 published volumes, most of them books and a smaller number of them booklets. These volumes are all catalogued individually, with a common sublocation of "Roy States Collection" within Rare Books and Special Collections. The remaining series contain a diversity of published, ephemeral, and unpublished materials, including various items by or about Roy States himself. Series A is a group of biographical materials and other items which relate directly to States. Series C consists of booklets and brochures. Series D consists of complete issues of newspapers, and Series E consists of complete issues of serials other than newspapers. Series F contains an assortment of newspaper and magazine clippings, as well as reprinted or photocopied extracts from books, journals and other works. Series G contains materials relating to conferences and meetings, chiefly involving groups and organizations advocating for civil rights; the materials include programs, agendas, minutes and reports, as well as the text of various speeches presented at these events. Series H consists primarily of graphic materials which have been mounted in cardboard-and-plastic display sleeves or in glass-fronted wooden frames. Series I is a group of miscellaneous materials such as studies, reports, typescripts, bibliographies and leaflets.

The collection consists of Edith Smellie's diary, a photograph, and notebook "Visiting List." The first section of her diary recounts a trip from Brockville, Ontario, to New York from October 2-10, 1888. She and her companions left Brockville by steamboat and transferred to rail at Morristown. The diary details visiting Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as Macy's and other stores. The final pages of the diary contain calculations and a short list of purchases, including boots, shoes, paints, and collars. A few pages in the diary begin to recount a second trip in 1889, as well as some poems. In addition to the diary is a sepia cabinet portrait by Sheldon & Davis, Kingston. The visiting list contains numbered entries of visitors for 1897, 1898, and 1899. There are also some addresses.

Collection consists of programs related to an appearance by Harry Belafonte in Montreal in support of the Society to Overcome Pollution's environmental aims. Also contains a clipping, manuscript notes, and a typescript signed Mona Elaine Adilman about Quebec environmental legislation.

Collection consists of pamphlets and reprints of scholarly works on Latin poetry and literary criticism, compiled by Otto Ribbeck.

The collection consists of research materials accumulated by members of the Burney Centre between approximately the years 1960 and 2010. The research materials are chiefly photocopies of letters from Burney family members the originals of which are held in European and other North American libraries. There are also three boxes of microfilm of letters, newspapers, and other documents associated with the Burney family. The materials total thousands of photocopies and hundreds of microfilm reels which have brought together ten thousand letters scattered over numerous major collections (including the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the British Library, the Morgan Library, the Houghton Library at Harvard, and the Huntington Library).

The collection consists primarily of recordings on audio cassette of beginner-level language lessons in Ojibwa, Cree, and Inuktitut; authored variously by Basil Johnston, S.T. Mallon et al., C. Douglas Ellis et al., and Louis-Philippe Vaillancourt. The majority of the included material dates from the 1970s. The accompanying language learning texts for the Ojibwa and Inuktitut audiocassettes are included in the collection, along with duplicate recordings of 35 of the Cree audiocassettes on 25 compact discs. The collection also contains a recording of the 1995 CBC Calgary radio program "Voices of the First Nations : The Prairies."

The collection consists of 287 negatives, 65 prints and 179 copy negatives from photographer Tappan Adney. The collection documents his passage in the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s. The negatives depict various geographic landscapes, people and animals, settlements, and day-to-day mining activities in numerous locations, such as, Dawson, Skagway, Lower Yukon, Bonanza Creek, El Dorado, Chilkoot Trail, Nome, Dyea, Skookumchuck, Hunker Creek, Tagish and Dutch Harbor.

This collection consists of lines on various subjects, 1815-1821.

This collection consists of translations from Terence, begun in 1778, and correspondence on military, political and private matters, 1787-1821, mostly addressed to Thomas Coutts, banker.