The Files papers document his activities as administrator of the Humanities Group and the English Department (ca 1946-1956, with some earlier material) and as a teacher. Administrative materials comprise about 1.5 m of information and correspondence files concerning the business of Senate, the Faculties of Arts and Science and Graduate Studies, the Humanities Group of the Arts Faculty, and the English Department. English Department material forms the largest part of the papers with files on honours and graduate students (including sessional registration forms), reading lists, examinations, awards, job applications, examination of theses, the administration of Moyse Hall, freshman orientation, and personal as well as general correspondence. There are also files pertaining to Files' work for the Montreal branch of the Humanities Association of Canada. Teaching materials consist of a large number of student essays, stories, examination papers and poems, including some by Louis Dudek and Irving Layton, ca 1937-1950. From Files' student days come lecture notes on the history of English language, 1921. There are also approximately 25 reprints of articles by Files' acquaintances and colleagues and copies of some journal and newspaper articles by and about Files.
The greater portion of Purves' papers consists of research materials from his undergraduate and post-graduate period. These include lecture notes in natural philosophy and chemistry (1921-1923), laboratory notes on methylated sugars (1923-1924), extraction of glucose by yeast (1929-1931) and carbohydrate analysis (1929-1930) and reports of experiments at the U.S. National Institute of Health. Teaching files contain lecture notes for his courses in organic chemistry (1957-1965) and correspondence with John R. Platt regarding a new textbook of elementary organic chemistry.
The fonds consists of records related to Robert Allen Cleghorn’s professional activities in psychiatry and includes 2 albums of photographs, lists of Cleghorn publications, 4 non-academic papers, a copy of Building on around the past: 50 years of psychiatry at McGill, and a carbon copy of Cleghorn's report to the Canadian Medical Association Journal on the Third World Congress of Psychiatry, 1961.
Scott's papers comprise notes, photographs, reprints and some correspondence on Biblical archeology, particularly weights, seals and coins (ca 1920-1966).
Snell's research files for his history of Macdonald College contain drafts of the book, and files of notes, extracts and clippings collected as background material. Included are two volumes of an attendance register from an unidentified Québec public school, 1857-1869.
Stansfield's student notebooks comprise three volumes of the geology lectures of Dr. Marr (1904). Research notes include laboratory records and a draft article on dolomite, and scattered notes on palaeontology and stratigraphy. His work as a teacher is documented by lecture notes on economic geography for a course given to McGill commerce students (1911).