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).

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

The collection consists of programs and recordings of ensemble performances (including opera) by students, faculty members, and guest artists associated with the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and performed at one of the School's halls (Pollack Hall, Redpath Hall, Tanna Schulich Hall, and Clara Lichtenstein Hall), as well as some performances at venues outside McGill.

The collection consists of ephemera, artifacts, and publications related chiefly to the Expo 67 World Fair in Montreal and some documents relating to its continuation, Man and His World (Terre des Hommes), an exhibition that was the successor to Expo 67. Many of the records and artifacts were produced by participant countries and sponsors or by the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition. Ephemera includes postcards, visitor passports, and ticket stubs, while other textual documents include guidebooks, magazines, catalogues, books, clippings, information manuals, and some unpublished planning documents. Artifacts include license plates, vinyl records, letter opener, bottle caps, shopping bags, and pins. The collection features pamphlets and brochures for numerous pavilions, events, services, and countries featured, as well as many maps for the Expo 67 grounds and documents related to subsequent seasons of Man and His World.

The Burney family manuscript collection consists chiefly of material created by Fanny Burney (1752-1840), novel Evelina (1778) was a bestseller during her life time and is still in print, as well as by Burney family members and friends. The manuscript collection contains correspondence, letter fragments, and a journal kept by Fanny Burney (1812), and other materials by Burney herself, other members of her family, and members of their circle. The collection also includes significant correspondence for her father, the musician and musical historian Charles Burney (1726-1814).

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."

Typed transcriptions of Charles McKenzie’s narratives about the Indigenous people of MIssouri, draft and revised draft before publication; Alexander Henry’s account entitled: “Account of a visit to the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians in 1806”; and John Macdonell’s “The Red River”. Also includes drafts for work entitled, "Early fur trade on the Northern Plains : Canadian traders among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818 : the narratives of John Macdonell, David Thompson, Franc̦ois-Antoine Larocque, and Charles McKenzie" / edited and with an introduction by W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Consists of an English translation of a letter to the Marquis de la Jonquière written by Antoine-Louis Rouillé, comte de Jouy, secretary of state for the French Navy, at Versailles, dated 28 February 1750. The letter discusses an immediate release of prisoners of war taken during conflicts between the French and British colonies. It also includes a mention of Indigenous allies of England and France, and Indigenous people captured during the conflicts: "the Indian Prisoners among the two Nations be likewise released, but after all the French and English Prisoners are released" The letter also includes the name of examiner Josiah Willard, secretary of the province of Massachusetts-Bay.