Papers include research files on Anna Botsford Comstock; research files on manuscript collections relating to China and Chinese students at Cornell; research files on Sarah Cooper; checklists of manuscript collections at Cornell relating to the West Indies, to the Ithaca Calendar Clock Company, to temperance, to architecture, and to Theodore Roosevelt; and information about cataloging and processing guidelines for the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives. Also photographs of staff.

Professional papers include files on talks and other presentations; files on attendance at professional meetings, especially the Society of American Archivists and the International Council on Archives; and files and photographs from a 1986 SAA trip to China.

Papers also include correspondence (includes autographs of Hans Bethe and George Meany); World War II letters from Don Reynolds; and student notes from classes of David Brion Davis, Paul W. Gates, Frederick G. Marcham, Curtis P. Nettels, Maurice F. Neufeld, Dexter Perkins, and Clinton Rossiter, 1952-1957.

Jacklin family papers include valentines (13 items, late 19th and early 20th century); scrapbook of trade cards, postcards, and clippings of poems and pictures; family photograph; Jacklin family letters from Ireland (with photocopies); genealogical records from Ireland; photostats of Civil War letters; family letters; photo/postcards of truck and car, Mannsville, NY; and 2004 Kerry-Edwards photograph.