Fonds consists of records created and received by Bud Osborn during his life and work as an activist, poet and community organizer in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Records include legal documents, reports, manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, royalty statements, sound recordings and research.

Collection comprises photographs, manuscripts, correspondence, ephemera, books and periodical material resulting from and pertaining to the settlement and subsequent history of Doukhobors in Western Canada. Books and periodical items have been catalogued in the SFU Library Catalogue. Digitized images and accompanying descriptions of a portion of the collection are available on the Doukhobor Collection, 1898-1930 website.

Collection consists of research material gathered by Johnston for his book "The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada's Colour Bar" (1979; 1989) and subsequent articles and books about Sikhs in Canada, including (with Tara Singh Bains) "The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh" (1995) and "Jewels of the Qila: The Remarkable Story of an Indo-Canadian Family" (2011). Records in the collection are primarily of photocopied and microfilmed material from archival material held by institutions, newspapers and journals, and notes and drafts.

Collection is divided into the following eleven series: Articles (1988–2016); "The voyage of the Komagata Maru" draft manuscripts (1977–1978); Finding aids, bibliography and essays on sources (1975–1991); Archival documents and research notes ([197-–before 2011]); Official sources files ([1975–after 1996]); Biographical and autobiographical sources files ([197-–198-?]); Individual files (1988–1993); Research studies files ([ca. 1980]–1988); Scholarly articles ([197-]–2000); Periodicals and pamphlets ([198-?]–2014); and Newspaper clippings ([197-]–2014).

Fonds consists of scrapbooks of Mitchell's travels to Japan and Korea, reports she wrote with the Neighbourhood Services Association as a Community Development worker, speeches mailings, newsletters, issues & case work files, correspondence, records related to her memoir, the Vancity Community Foundation's Margaret Mitchell Fund for Women, photographs of various events, and House of Commons debate transcripts.