Subseries consists of materials used for the writing of Gordon Shrum: An Autobiography with Peter Stursberg, edited by Clive Cocking. This book was conceived by Darrel Zarn of the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies at SFU. He approached Peter Stursberg, an experienced journalist, who conducted a series of oral history interviews with Shrum in 1983. In order to fund the interviews, they were conducted under the oral history program of the Public Archives (now the National Archives) of Canada and the Parliamentary Library. Stursberg also made a 21/2 hour video interview of Shrum at the Instructional Media Centre at SFU. In addition, he interviewed nine of Shrum's friends and Shrum's son to provide material for the books's introduction. Because Stursberg was occupied with other projects, Clive Cocking a Vancouver writer and editor was hired to complete the project. Cocking conducted a series of supplementary interviews in 1985 to clarify statistics and other facts from the oral history interviews. Unfortunately, Shrum passed away suddenly before the manuscript was completed. The finished book appeared in 1986 through the support of SFU and the University of British Columbia.

The subseries contains transcripts, background materials, notes, drafts, U-matic videos, audio reels, and audio cassettes.

Sub-series consists of records made and received by Dr. Shrum in the course of his activities as Chancellor. Subjects and activities documented include planning and construction of the university, selection of architects (including the lead design firm Erickson Massey Architects), meetings of the Buildings and Site Committee, correspondence with various architects, speaking engagements, fundraising, and correspondence with external agencies. Record types include correspondence, meeting agenda and minutes, memoranda, reports, and transcripts of two interviews (with Clive Cocking and Peter Stursberg). Correspondents whose names appear in file titles are registered as Access Points.