The Andover Newton Theological School Collection contains materials collected by the institution and its predecessors, in addition to some institutional records. The majority of the materials collected are linguistic, representing written samples of multiple languages. Other material collected appears to be from various missionary work, including articles, pamphlets, sermons, photographs, and maps. A number of items were originally part of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' library, Newton Theological Institution's library, and Andover Newton Theological's library. Most of the material has a typed note as to what it is and when it was received by the donor. All non-English item descriptions used in this finding aid are from these notes; there may be inaccuracies. While a number of non-English items are listed as undated, they may contain dates in another language that were not identified by the original translator. This collection has been divided into three series.

Series I. Linguistic Materials contains written samples of multiple languages. This includes posters, correspondence, dictionaries, manuscripts, school workbooks, newspapers, and scriptures. These have been arranged alphabetically by language: Arabic, Armenian, Cherokee, Chinese, Dayak, Greek, Hebrew, Mahratta, Malagasy, Marathi, Persian, Russian, Samaritan, Siamese, Swahili, Syriac, Tamil, and Turkish. The tract written in Dyak was written by Reverend Frederick B. Thompson (1809-1848), who was a missionary to Borneo from 1838 to 1848. The Tamil dictionary was prepared by Levi Spaulding, and written out by the girls in the Female Boarding School in Oodooville, Ceylon.

Series II. Missionary Work contains materials about various religious missionaries, missions, or materials about the countries or peoples in which the missionaries had an interest. Included in this series are memoirs, articles, a copy of the constitution of the Original Hawaiian Church, pamphlets, a manuscript, a script of a play, sermons, images, maps, architectural drawings, and an Indian train schedule. The sermons include notes of sermons preached by Jonathan Edwards before the Mohawk people in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in January and February 1751 (box 4, folder 8), and one preached by Samuel Austin Worcester in 1832, in a Georgia penitentiary where he was confined for teaching Cherokees (box 4, folder 9). Caution must be used when opening the periodical An Indian Dream, as some of the pages are torn (box 4, folder 1), and when viewing the glass plate negative, as a corner has broken off (box 4, folder 10).

Also included in this series are receipts for mission donations, and four boxes of daguerreotypes. The daguerreotypes are restricted due to their fragility; however, images of each item are available in the reading room, and details of each item can be found in Appendix II.

Series III. Collections Records contains records about the Andover Newton Theological Society and its predecessors' various collections, or collections they were interested in.

Series IV. Other contains miscellaneous items such as correspondence, a copy of an address given at Newton Theological, statistics of Boston area churches in 1908, and two copper printing plates from the Printing House.