The collection contains materials related to Dr. David E. Bess’s "California City Song" Project including sheet music for songs about California, a small amount of sheet music for songs about other places, research materials, sheet music cover artwork, and presentations on the project.

The collection is mostly facsimiles of sheet music, but there is also a small number of originals included. Some originals are autographed. The songs are about California cities, California counties, California geographical landmarks, and the State of California. There are also songs that refer to a California city in their title, but are not necessarily about that city.

Bess provided an index listing all songs, including those he researched but was not able to obtain a copy of. The collection also includes Dr. Bess’s introduction and summary to the project, his research and planning, as well as his presentations including a paper he presented on the subject at the Eighth Annual Conference on Planning History in Washington D.C. Bess collected most of these songs during the period from 1985 to 2000. The collection is organized alphabetically.