The Katherine Osborne Collection consists of a set of four scrapbooks, all compiled by her, and two religious manuscripts of southeast Asian origin and likely written in Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi or Pali. The text of the bound manuscript volumes is written with the devanāgirī, or nāgarī script. Of great interest in this collection is a detailed map annotated by Mrs. Osborne of her travels throughout Switzerland from 1910-1932, including routes taken and years of occurrence. Another scrapbook contains fifteen years-worth of holiday cards from two or three different families, from 1929 – 1943. The remaining two scrapbooks detail, using photographs, calling cards, party invitations, and newspaper clippings, Mrs. Osborne’s travels throughout India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in the 1920s and 1930s. Also included are images from her travels to Hudson Bay, near Quebec, largely featuring the landscape but select art as well. The most notable items in this collection are myriad photographs taken, primarily of young men and women, from Mrs. Osborne’s travels to Afghanistan and India, as well as some correspondence in the form of invitations from several government officials installed by Britain in Afghanistan and India at the time.

Besides the four scrapbooks, the collection’s prominent pieces are the two religious manuscripts, all of which feature a handful of full-color illuminated images. The text of the bound manuscript volumes is written with the devanāgirī, or nāgarī, script. Although this script is used by a variety of languages, some of which include Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi and Pali, at the time this collection was processed the language represented in the volume had not yet been identified.