The fonds consists of the personal records of Gilean Douglas which were produced and received during her personal and literary activities . It includes manuscripts of poems, articles, short fiction and books ; material generated and collected by Douglas during her involvement with various organizations ; notes and drafts of various writings ; research materials ; an extensive professional, fan and personal correspondence; financial records ; legal records ; lists and inventories ; records of publication ; clippings. There are journals and engagement books dating from 1911, notebooks and address books, and scrapbooks containing clippings of Douglas' published articles and poems . There are also scrapbooks and correspondence generated by her parents dating back to the 1880s. There is a notable gap in records dating from 1929 to 1932.

Photographic records date from the 1890s to the I990sand include prints, framed portraits, slides, negatives and film strips. A large assortment of photos documents her family and childhood. Douglas started taking photographs as a child. By her early twenties she was an accomplished photographer, using her own pictures to illustrate her writings. Photographs taken by her during the 1920s through the early 1940s are for the most part found in the albums. Pictures taken in the 1950s and 1960s fall into 3 main categories : black & white photos of the B .C. coast taken during her trips on the boats of the Columbia Coast Mission, color and black & white photos of communities in B .C. and eastern Canada taken during her trips for the W.I ., and pictures of Channel Rock . Unfortunately the slides and pictures taken on WI trips are unlabelled and for the most part can only be identified as to general location and date. During the 1970s and 1980s the photographs are almost exclusively of Channel Rock. A representative sample of these is included in this series ; others may be found at the Cortes Museum and Archives.

Aside from Douglas' own photographs, there are several interesting groups of other people's pictures in this collection: an album with pictures of overseas service during World War I, a group of labelled photographs of Baffin Island, Pangirtung, etc. taken in 1926/27 by an RCMP officer, and photographs from a trip around the world on a freighter in 1919.

The records offer insight into Douglas' personal history and literary development . They document, in words and pictures, an unusual and interesting life which began at the turn of the twentieth century.

The collection consists of records covering the period from the granting of the Victoria and Esquimalt Telephone Company charter in 1880 to 1982 when B.C. Telephone Company employees were laid off without notice. It includes union minutes, arbitration details, correspondence, press clippings, constitutions, agreements, and financial reports relating to the Telecommunications Workers Union of B.C.

The fonds consists of 1,398 glass plate negatives, glass lantern slides, celluloid prints and celluloid negatives, the majority of which were taken by Lilian Bland. The photographs reflect the varied and unique life of Lilian Bland and her family. The fonds includes several photographs of the Mayfly, the bi-plane Lilian famously designed, constructed, and flew. Other photographic subjects include horse-riding and horse-racing, Lilian's fathers' artwork, her husbands' travels in China, family photographs, birds and bird-watching, her travels in Europe, California, and British Columbia, and photographs documenting her years spent as a settler living on the Quatsino Sound in Vancouver Island and in California with her family.
Other record types in the fonds include Lilian Bland’s unpublished memoir, and the original enclosures for the photographs including boxes, envelopes, and box lists.
The finding aid for the fonds, attached as a PDF, includes a spreadsheet of images as they were received upon donation to Rare Books and Special Collections. A brief description created by the donor is available for each image in the finding aid.

Fonds consists of over 4,600 photographic prints, negatives, glass lantern slides, and postcards, the majority of which were either taken or collected by Robinson. Many of the photographs relate to Robinson’s work as an Anglican missionary in Japan in the 1890’s through the 1920’s. These photographs document a unique time in the Japan’s history: the Meiji-Taisho period when the country was transitioning away from being a feudal society and beginning to open up to the West. This collection is one of the few comprehensive records of this time period. Subject matter of the photographs includes everyday life, work, and scenery in Japan, as well as the lives and works of missionaries.

Also included in the collection are photographs from Canada and the Robinson family’s travels around the world, as well as reproductions of missionary and religious texts or graphics.

While many of the photographs were taken by Robinson, others were taken by his children, professional photographers, or unidentified individuals.

The fonds also includes 10 maps of Japan used during Robinson’s missionary work, some with annotations of proposed Canadian jurisdictions in Japan.

Fonds consists of 947 letters, bills of exchange, and telegrams sent from Victoria-area merchants to Royal Fisk, a forwarding and shipping agent in San Francisco, during the Cariboo Gold Rush. Letters provide insight into the effect of the Cariboo Gold Rush on trade and commerce in Victoria at the time. Topics covered in the letters include ordering goods; remitting cash, gold and drafts; advising of market prices; conditions in the mines of Victoria and Puget Sound; providing news of latest gold discoveries, shipping activity, finances, and mergers or dissolutions; business alliances; establishing express services; arrival of the first telegraph; et al.

The collection consists of ninety-one albums of postcards and photographs pertaining to views and scenes mainly in British Columbia, but also including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon as well as Europe. The views of British Columbia include views of the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver, Victoria, Mayne Island, and Buttle Lake (pre-1911) as well as those of logging (Capilano Timber Co., 1917-1920), mining (Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Co. and Consolidated Cariboo Hydraulic Mining Co.) railways (Canadian Pacific Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, and Great Northern Railway) and shipping. In addition, there are postcards and photographs of the Hudson's Bay Company Kamchatka Venture, 1921, U.S. Civil War portraits and New Zealand shipping.

The collection consists of five letters (1863-1871); a diary belonging to Charles O. Eaton of Boston; a list of clothing and other garrison camp equipment of Lt. William McKinley, Jr.; two broadsides; a printed report of a meeting of the citizens of Bobb County, Georgia (1860); a publication of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society; a lock of Mrs. Robert E. Lee's hair and an engraving of General Ulysses S. Grant and family.

This collection consists of materials related to early British Columbia history in the years when BC was still a British colony, prior to joining Canada in 1871. The collection consists of colonial government documents (proclamations, messages, acts, and rules and regulations) effecting the daily life of British Columbians. These include real estate titles, road works, railways, local, legal and financial matters, labour, and infrastructure. The collection includes proclamations by James Douglas, who was the first governor of BC and served from 1858-1864.

The Penkill collection consists of records of William Bell Scott, Alice Boyd and Margaret Courtenay. The collection includes five hundred letters from Scott to Alice Boyd, and a large number of letters to Scott and Boyd from other artists and writers. Also in the collection are the letters from Arthur Hughes and letters concerning the 1872 illness of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The collection also includes the diaries of W.B. Scott, Alice Boyd and Margaret Courtenay.

The collection consists of four parts: (1) photocopied and original newsletters, pamphlets, publications, clippings and printed material in general; (2) manuscript collections and personal papers (most copied from original material held elsewhere); (3) microfilms; and, (4) photographs. The manuscript files include the papers or records of Koozma John Tarasoff, Union of Doukhobors of Canada, Consultative Committee on Doukhobors, Stefan Sorokin, W.A. Makaseyoff, Peter V. Verigin, John G. Bondoreff, Christian Community and Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, Peter Maloff, Alex Popoff, Eli Popoff, James Mavor, David Henderson, Claude Fisher, Peter Brock and Ivan Swetlishnoff. All the material relates to the history and activities of Doukhobors throughout the world as well as in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The collection consists of correspondence, field notes and printed material relating to the Romani people and essays and vocabulary manuscripts about the Romani of Washington State.

The Angeli-Dennis collection consists of the diaries (1855-1913), manuscripts, financial records and correspondence of William Michael Rossetti. Also included are the manuscripts, correspondence and financial records of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1842-1882), Christina Georgina Rossetti (1853-1894), Ford Madox Brown (1852-1993), Gabriele Rossetti and other members of the Rossetti family. In addition, the collection includes materials of Robert Browning, Thomas Landseer, William North, Algernon Swinburne and James Thomson.

The collection contains a variety of artifacts, and includes children's games, items related to the Gold Rush, and various odd items tangentially related to Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives collecting interests.

The fonds consists primarily of Thomas Brayshaw’s fishing diaries (1932-1964) and correspondence, manuscripts, and subject files (1907-1967). This is largely reflective of Brayshaw’s work and related interests. The fonds also contains a collection of documents and research related to the Brayshaw family, containing genealogical research, and family photographs, personal records and artefacts. This includes some personal records of Thomas Brayshaw, notably war service records, and some photographs and fishing flies related to his work and interests.

The collection consists of letters signed by prominent historical figures including Napoleon I, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, John Jellicoe, Robert Peel, William Pitt, August-Norbert Morin, and the Duke of Wellington.

The fonds consists of correspondence, subject files and photograph albums pertaining to the Fullers' professional careers, labour activities and personal lives. The fonds also contains materials which reflect the activities of the Labour History Provincial Specialist Association of the BCTF and the Sechelt Indian Curriculum Project and a film, "For Twenty Cents a Day".