Much of the collection was used by Professor Turk in writing The Musical Danas of Warren, Ohio. The collection contains a wide variety of materials and is artificially arranged by material type with a copy of the original inventory attached to the accession form. Series I includes various lists of students and faculty from the Dana School of Music dated 1870-1980, 1995, and undated. Some materials in this series are restricted due to confidential information. The minutes of the Young Men's Christian Association from the years 1937-1943 are contained in Series II. During this time, the Dana Institute of Music became part of Youngstown College and moved from Warren, Ohio to Youngstown. Series III contains various materials related to the faculty of the Dana School of Music from the years 1927-2004. Most of these are newspaper clippings found in the Jambar or the Vindicator. Series IV contains various publications of William Henry Dana, hand written musical compositions and various manuals of Nellie Gwynne Dehnbostel, and various marches, one dedicated in 1865 to William Henry Dana's uncle, Charles Anderson Dana. The photograph collection in Series V, contains four sub-series, the first covers the Dana family, the second, various students, faculty and buildings that housed the Dana School of Music, the third, operas that the Dana School of Music performed from the 1900s to 1960s, and the fourth, photographic negatives. Many of the photographs in this collection were taken by the Youngstown Vindicator. Copyright must be taken into consideration. Series VI consists of subject files containing various materials from posters to student transcripts. Some materials too large to be housed in the collection were filed in Archives flat file drawers. Series VII is contained in two manuscript boxes, each containing a scrapbook with various programs and photographs associated with the Dana School of Music. The final part of the collection in box 4 contains a thin threaded French flag with "Vive la France" sewn into it.
