The collection consists of disaster and research reports, disaster preparedness workshop training manuals, seminar papers, consultancy management files, newspaper clippings, small publications and ephemera, a large number of SOPAC (Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission) and United Nations reports, and documents created when Joe Barr was engaged as a consultant in relation to disaster management in the Pacific Islands. Of particular significance are the photographs and slides taken immediately following disasters in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Cambodia, Turkey, Afghanistan, India and Indonesia.

The collection has a strong emphasis on Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, but includes other countries - Thailand, Cambodia, China and Africa. Photographs of people, family groups, villages with some place names - Goilala, Baruni, Eastern Highlands, Kimbe, Yuli. Some material includes data from the Hagahai people of Papua New Guinea.