The collection consists of two catalogues (1927, 1935) of ethnological specimens presented by Frank Burnett to UBC and minutes of the University of British Columbia's President's Committee on the Musuem (1941-1944).

The fonds consists of 141 letters written by 83 Canadian authors who received letters from the school requesting their books, a photograph, and a letter relating to their literary career. The photographs, with two exceptions, were not retained with letters and the books were placed in the school library; but the letters, many with their envelopes addressed to Miss Margaret Cowie, were passed by Margaret Cowie to a friend and eventually donated to the UBC Library. The correspondents include Marius Barbeau, Frank Burnett, Bliss Carman, Mazo de la Roche, Francis Dickie, Hubert Evans, Nellie McClung, L.M. Montgomery Macdonald, Isabel E. MacKay, Charles Mair, Emily Murphy, Charles G.D. Roberts, Constance Skinner, Robert Stead, and A.M. Stephen. Most of the letters were written between 1925 and 1928.