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The collection consists of correspondence, writings, notebooks, photographs, artwork, objects, audiovisual materials, and electronic media the document the life and work of Ira Cohen. The papers include materials relating to other writers, artists, and groups including Ronnie Burk, Louise Landes-Levi, the Living Theatre, Gerard Malanga, Petra Vogt, Tom Weigel, various Beat generation writers, and others. Artwork includes mail art, paintings, drawings, screen prints, and posters. Objects include stamps, Cohen's typewriter, masks, and plaster and papier mache casts. Casts include life masks made by Cohen of friends including Allen Ginsberg and Julian Beck and a cast of William S. Burroughs' hand.

The Isabel Leighton Papers contain writings, correspondence, personal papers, audiovisual material, photographs, and printed material that document her career as an actress, playwright, journalist, screenwriter, and civic activist, promoting public measures to improve mental health. Writings include typescript drafts, many with minor revisions, for works including "The Sapphire Ring," "Katja," and "Mercenary Mary." Correspondence, while not extensive, includes files on theatrical projects such as "Spring Again," and files relating to her work as a naval correspondent in Asia during the Second World War. The scrapbooks document Leighton's theatrical performances in the 1930s, journalism in the 1940s, and broadcast production in the 1950s and 1960s. Photographs largely feature Leighton, though also include images of colleagues, acquaintances, and family members.

The collection consists of audiotapes, transcripts, notebooks, correspondence, documents, printed material, and writings accumulated by Levy while conducting research for his book, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. The collection documents the life of Cesar Chavez as well as the early history of the United Farm Workers union. The collection contains a large oral history component, 314 audiotapes totalling ca. 500 hours of interviews, with extensive interviews of Chavez, Chavez family members, colleagues, and others involved in the labor movement in the United States. Levy typed transcripts for many tapes. These are present in the collection.
The collection also contains 96 spiral notebooks containing Levy's field notes of meetings, court hearings, and labor negotiations, extensive subject files on the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, signed into law in 1975, and an assassination plot against Chavez by growers. These materials are augmented by research conducted by Levy after Chavez's death, with audiotape interviews, book outlines, letters, and Chavez's FBI files.

The James Kirkup Papers includes correspondence, writings, photographs, audiovisual material, personal documents and memorabilia that document the life and work of British author James Kirkup.The papers span his writing career, from early school papers to printouts of digital books published in the 2000s, and include documentation of the diverse genres of Kirkup's research and writing. The papers document not only Kirkup's life and work, but also pacifism as a theme in literature, twentieth-century gay life, émigré life in Japan, 20th century literature and poetry (especially haiku), and Kirkup's family history. Prominent correspondents include Akiko Takemoto and Muriel Metcalfe.

The James Laughlin Papers contain writings by Laughlin and others, an award acceptance speech by Laughlin, papers and audiocassettes relating to "New Directions at 50," the 50th Anniversary of New Directions exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, and various material removed from printed volumes.

The collection consists of material created and accumulated by James Lord in the course of his activities as an art critic and writer, and includes drafts of writings, research material, correspondence, photographs, and audiovisual recordings. Correspondence (Series I) is both personal and professional, and relates chiefly to the artistic and literary world of mid- and late-twentieth-century Paris. Writings (Series II) include Lord's extensive research files, drafts, and primary sources for Giacometti: A Biography. Drafts and correspondence relating to Lord's memoirs, including letters from his mother that he used as source material for Six Exceptional Women: Further Memoirs (1994), are also filed in the Writings series. Visual Material (Series III) includes photographs of Pablo Picasso by Lord and an unidentified photographer, and photographs of Lord in the 1950s and 1960s, including portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Series III also includes drawings by Jean Cocteau and others. Audiovisual recordings (Series IV) relate chiefly to Lord's research on Alberto Giacometti and include interviews and lectures. Personal Papers (Series V) consist of Lord's 1960 passport and fragmentary portions of his journals. Printed Material (Series VI) consists chiefly of clippings and magazine articles related to Lord and his research. A small amount of printed ephemera is also filed in Series VI.

The Weil papers contain correspondence, production files and writings, records of the Elizabeth Press, printed and audiovisual materials, and personal papers. The collection is made up of twenty-one separate donations made by Weil from 1983 to 2005. The first several accessions consist exclusively of materials relating to publications by Weil, while later accessions, beginning with the October 1990 Acquisition, consist of larger groups of material including correspondence, production files, and other papers. Correspondence in the collection, which features letters from writers, journal editors, publishers, booksellers, the many libraries to which Weil made donations, and others, is thus spread over multiple accessions. It is either sorted roughly, into so-called letter general folders ("A"-"Z") or by date, or it is unsorted; the bulk of the letters are also still housed in original envelopes. Individual correspondents include: Bob Arnold of Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers, Cid Corman, Theodore Enslin, David Giannini, Lyman Gilmore, Henry Lyman, Simon Perchik, Felix Stefanile, Jack Stillinger, Pierre Ullman, and others. Correspondence can include enclosures, such as drafts of writings, photographs, and printed material. Most of the production files in the collection appear to relate to the limited edition chapbooks and printed keepsakes published by Weil under his own name (James L. Weil, Publisher) from the mid 1980s onward, though records relating to the Elizabeth Press (1963-1981) can also be found. The production files, which include correspondence, drafts, specifications, proofs, and printed versions, feature work by William Bronk, Cid Corman, Larry Eigner, Aleksis Rannit, Karl Shapiro, Felix Stefanile, and others. Printed materials include newspapers, journals, clippings, and offprints containing reviews and concerning literary matters such as modern fine printing and small press publishing.

The collection consists of writings, journals, correspondence, printed material, photographs, audiovisual material, computer disks, and other papers documenting the literary careers and lives of James McCourt and Vincent Virga.

The collection consists of writings, correspondence, photographs, audiovisual material, artwork, printed material, computer disks and other papers by or relating to James Merrill and documenting aspects of his work as a poet and writer. Some of the material was created and accumulated by J. D. McClatchy, who served as executor of Merrill's estate and who co-edited several volumes of Merrill's works, including Collected Poems (2001), Collected Novels and Plays (2002), Collected Prose (2004), The Changing Light at Sandover (2006), and Selected Poems (2008).