The records relate primarily to McDonald's professional teaching, writing and research work and, to a much lesser extent, are records about his personal life. The course teaching materials include outlines and syllabi, lecture notes, class handouts, newspaper clippings, website printouts, and other materials used to develop course content. Records relating to McDonald's writing include typescript drafts, off-prints, handwritten notes, conference papers, and correspondence. The most extensive records relate to McDonald's research. They include newspaper clippings and other published items, copies of articles annotated by McDonald's, handwritten index cards with notes and citations, correspondence, and audio recordings of interviews, music and speeches. Finally, records related to awards and recognition received include curriculum vitae, certificates, correspondence and McDonald's Killam Teaching Award from 2000.

Fonds consists of personal and professional materials of Ward’s related to his career. The fonds is divided into four series: Project series (1980-2020); Publications and Conferences (1966-2009); Teaching and Research Materials (1992-2003), and Correspondence series (1978-2001).

The fonds consists of minutes from the Departments of Asian Studies (1968-1992) and History (1964-1992) as well as committee material and other records generated by these two units (1962-1992). In addition, Harnetty has provided several detailed lists which serve as abstracts for much of the material. The fonds also includes copies of speeches by Harnetty between 1961 and 1966, course material from 1985 to 1992, and other ephemera.

The fonds consists of correspondence, drafts, essays, lecture notes, course outlines, clippings and research materials created and collected by Ormsby in her diverse roles as student, professor, researcher and author. Also included are records generated between 1957 and 1967 by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

The fonds consists of student notebooks (1948-1957), which include student notebooks and essays; teaching notes (1957-1980), which consist of lecture notes on various subjects as well as files related to other academic activities; correspondence; writings, which contain drafts of both articles and books - published and unpublished; research materials, which include notes arranged in subject files, copies of historical documents as well as scrapbooks of newspaper clippings on Indians (1970-1978) and numerous articles by W.H. Siebert; and a miscellaneous series which includes reviews of Upton's work as well as files on Loyalist studies in Canada.