This series contains ephemera created by McGill University, McGill-affiliated student groups, and local organizations between 1855 and 2018. Also includes commercially-produced material whose subject is McGill.

This series is described at the file level. Includes flyers, programmes, brochures and pamphlets, postcards, invitations, tickets, posters, membership cards, greeting cards, dance cards, and other materials.

Abundant in minutes, reports, correspondence and memoranda, Committees were crucial to the work of the MCSA. In this series, whose surviving documents commence in 1937, may be found the records of the two standing committees - the Executive and the Nominating - of each of the four special interest sections, which along with their respective Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary, administered each section. Also to be found here are the numerous and various special committees created by the relevant section Executive Committee to study, survey or otherwise deal with matters coming to the section's attention: the resulting fruits of their labours are found not only here but also constitute a significant proportion of both the Reports, Studies, Briefs and Surveys Series; and the Publications (MCSA and Member Organizations) Series.

At the very centre of the MCSA's permanent bureaucracy stood the central standing committees (as distinct from the two standing committees, previously alluded to, for each of the four special interest sections). The Committees Series likewise contains the records of these central standing committees: the Executive Committee deputed by the Board of Governors to function in place of the Board between its meetings; and the Planning, Research, Admissions and Standards. Public Information, and Nominating Committees respectively, all also appointed by the Board.

Besides documents generated exclusively by the MCSA, this grouping also holds some of those of joint or other closely affiliated committees, most notably those of the Directors of the Federations and Councils, Welfare Federation of Montreal and United Red Feather Services, Federated Appeal of Greater Montreal, and the Conseil des Oeuvres and its successor, the Conseil de Developpement Social. External committees will be found in other series according to their provenance and function.

This series contains scrapbooks and notebooks created by McGill students, their families, and McGill student organizations between 1870 and 2001.

This series is described at the item level. Student scrapbooks contain photographs, newspaper clippings, and ephemera such as programmes and invitations that document the student’s life and studies while they were at McGill. Student notebooks contain drawings, notes, photographs, and reports created by McGill students as part of their coursework. Scrapbooks and notebooks of McGill student organizations contain schedules, notes, photographs, press clippings, programmes, and sketches related to the organizations’ activities.

These files pertain to meetings which the Council, its representatives and member agencies sponsored or otherwise attended, or, in a few cases, simply considered of sufficient importance to retain a record thereof. Their venue was normally Montreal i if they transpired elsewhere the location and/or auspices is generally indicated in the file title. With surviving records beginning with a 1946 Community Planning Institute (file 877) and ending in a 1973 Notre Dame de Grace Conference on the Quality of Life (file 1041), such gatherings ranged from the comparatively structured format of the annual meeting of the Canadian Welfare Council devoted to the general review of activities, to the more informal regime but focused concerns of seminars, workshops and institutes. Geographically, their settings varied from BaieComeau in the east to Vancouver in the west, and from large metropolitan centres to the Laurentian rusticity of Ste. Adele and L'Esterel. Particularly heavily represented here are Community Funds and Councils of Canada meetings and management staff training seminars, 1968-1971. Important to the development and maintenance of personal contacts in the social welfare field as well as the exchange and up-dating of information, this series features proceedings, reports, briefs and correspondence.

This series contains graphic materials depicting McGill students, staff, and buildings, created between 1857 and 1993. Also includes some photos of views of Montreal.

This series is described at the file level. Graphic materials include photographs, prints of lithographs and engravings, slides, stereoscopic photos, cartes-de visite, architectural drawings, original sketches, and some printing plates and blocks.

This series contains audiovisual material created by McGill University and McGill student societies between 1949 and 2003. Most are recordings of theatrical or musical performances, or university ceremonies such as the awarding of honorary degrees.

This series is described at the item level. Series includes audio diskettes (CDs), vinyl records, and VHS cassettes.

This series contains textiles created by McGill University, McGill students, or McGill student societies between roughly 1907 and 2006. Many items in this series are undated.

This series is described at the item level. Includes T-shirts, textile patches, cardigans, blazers, pillow cases, tobacco silks, neckties, a jacket, a cap, and a banner.

This is the smallest series. Indeed, while a few scattered items in Administrative Records and Committees (for example, files 262, 454, 543, 770 and 858) deal in varying degrees with budgets, grants or other aspects of finance, only twenty-one files, representing the years 1962-1972, comprise the MCSA Financial Records Series in the McGill University Archives. However, Financial Federation and Welfare Federation data for earlier periods, as well as further important documentation of the United Red Feather Services' role, remain in the holdings of Centraide, 493 Sherbrooke Street West. Here can be found financial statements, ledgers, pension records, correspondence, budgets, minutes and related reports which fill in the MCSA picture much more completely.

Nonetheless, the Council Financial Records Series' most complete run of material in the McGill Archives (ten files bearing the title, Budget and United Red Feather Services Budget Committee, each covering a consecutive year, 1962-1971), constitutes a major functional contact between the MCSA and the main source of funding in its last decade. Also of note here are such miscellany as financial statements of the Foster Home Recruiting Centre for 1969 and the Research Department, 1967-1971.