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The Dale A. Olsen Collection consists of over 800 audio and visual items that span Dr. Olsen's career as a researcher and educator from 1965 to 2007. They contain a variety of music from Japan, China, Indonesia, Persia, Africa, Ireland, South America, the Caribbean, and North America. While most of the recordings chronicle Dr. Olsen's extensive fieldwork in South America with Japanese immigrants and Warao Indians, other recordings include concerts by FSU world music ensembles, student and guest lectures, other special events and ceremonies, private gatherings at home, and even a handful of commercial recordings. About 80 of the reel-to-reel recordings were actually used as audio examples for Olsen's study of the connection of indigenous tribes to their environment, Music of the Warao of Venezuela: Song People of the Rain Forest, winner of the 1997 Alan P. Merriam Prize for "Most Outstanding Book in Ethnomusicology."

The collection of Dana A. Dorsey is comprised of the legal and financial records of his vast real estate holdings. Mortgages, leases, rental and loans agreements represent the focus of the collection. Of special interest to researchers are those documents which detail the growth of both black and white Miami, deeds which describe in detail the properties and location of what were the newly created sub-divisions in the city. In a period of racial segregation these documents show a blurring of racial lines as exemplified by Dana Dorsey business relations with the founding families of the city.

The Dance Band Combos Collection consists of instrumental arrangements of popular songs first made for distribution to theater and music hall orchestras. These early to mid 20th century arrangements proved so popular that surprised publishers began making them available for general sale. Pit bands could then purchase a ready-made score of a current hit tune to vary their repertoire. Dance groups found them useful as well, and they made novel additions to the programs of salon ensembles and amateur combinations. Later, these multi-purpose orchestrations became commonly known as stock arrangements.

Photographic study of the Florida Everglades circa 1950-1980, commissioned to study modern organic sediments as a means to understanding the origin of coal. Geographic regions covered include the following: Little Banana River, Shark River Headquarters, Tamiami Trail, Bay Head, Paurotis Pond, Harvey River, Cape Sable. Photographs cover the following subjects: mangrove peat, pyrite content, distribution of rhizophora pollen, benzo-alcohol extractive, ether extractives, sulfur in stream loads.

The Daniel M. Johnson Collection consists of approximately 5,200 books published between the 1780s to 2002 that are by and about Africans and people of African descent. The collection includes many first edition and signed copies as well as pamphlets, articles, letters and photographs. The major categories that Daniel M. Johnson delineated for his collection are: African-American literature and children's literature; African and Caribbean literature; African-American history and critical thought; African, Egyptian, and Middle-Eastern history; and African-American art, music, dance, and sports. The catalog includes 4164 nonfiction books and 907 fiction books.

This collection relates to Staff Sergeant Warren R. MacInnes (part of the 834th) in Italy. The box contains letters and photographs sent to him from his wife while he was stationed on the Italian front in Europe. In addition, there are periodicals and pamphlets related to the reintroduction of soldiers from the Italian front back into civilian life Stateside.  This collection also contains documents related to Private Gerald Greenbaum who served with 1560th Service Unit, Medical Section-Station Complement, Camp Atterbury, Indiana.