The bulk of the papers comprise individually numbered research papers and notes for Gibson's post-graduate studies. The collection also includes miscellaneous research papers and lecture notes, a body of material on Papua New Guinea education in the post-war years, numbered general correspondence and copies of Gibson's theses. There are personal papers as well. Gibson kept a diary for six months in 1946 and Joan Gibson wrote in a travel diary, 1949, recording her impressions of the trip from Melbourne to Rabaul. There are also copies of letters Joan Gibson sent to family and friends in Australia while she was in Papua New Guinea in 1949-50.