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The Columbia collection includes ca. 2150 papyri and over 3600 ostraca in a variety of languages including Greek, Latin, Egyptian (Demotic, Coptic and Hieratic) and Arabic. Among the papyri, there are also a few texts on parchment and paper. The papyri range in date from the 3rd century BCE to the 7th century CE and come from different parts of Egypt. About 300 have been published in the volumes of Columbia Papyri (P.Col., volumes I-XI) and a few more were published elsewhere. The papyri preserve a variety of texts, from ancient fragments of important literary works (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Euripides' Orestes, Plato's Phaedrus) written much earlier than the medieval manuscripts upon which modern editions are usually based, to mundane documents such as private letters, tax receipts, petitions and contracts, which illustrate the economic activities, personal relationships, legal conflicts and contractual arrangements of people in Greco-Roman Egypt over a period of about 1000 years.

The University Artifacts Collection contains objects, textiles, buttons, trophies, ribbons, plaques, plates, and other three-dimensional items used as well as created by or for the University since its founding in 1754 as King's College. Some items were created for specific individuals or classes.

Correspondence, manuscripts, typescripts, notes, photographs, and printed materials relating to his research, writing, and teaching. The correspondence relates chiefly to research for his books, articles, essays, and lectures as well as reactions, scholarly and popular, to his works. There are single letters for authors including Maxwell Anderson, Lawrence Durrell, Randall Jarrell, and Upton Sinclair; several letters each from John Masefield, James Thurber, and E.B. White; 21 letters from Clifton Fadiman; correspondence with Columbia University faculty and students; with classical scholars in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe; with publishers including Alfred A. Knopf and Oxford University Press; with his literary agent Curtis Brown, Ltd.; with HORIZON MAGAZINE, as chairman of its Advisory Editorial Board; with the Book-of-the-Month Club, as a Judge; with Encyclopedia Britannica Sound Seminars; correspondence concerning his very popular syndicated radio talks; and letters from his readers, ranging from members of women's literary clubs to headmasters of British secondary schools.

Collection of books and manuscripts relating to Mary, Queen of Scots, and to the Thirty Years' War; most of the collection was donated to the Library by General J. Watts de Peyster, 1888-1893

Mostly photostat negative copies of various medieval primary resources from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.