The World War I Collection is divided into five sections, organized from general to specific as documents relate to McLean County. The Liberty Loan Campaign was national, so this section includes that information but focuses on efforts in McLean County, such as the record books of contributions of local residents and the officers of the local organization (Folder A2). The second section includes other home front efforts.

The third category includes publications about local efforts and service personnel, booklets servicemen received from the War Department, as well as postcard booklets and other guidebooks which servicemen brought home from Europe.

Documents relating to service personnel are in two major sections: General and Specific Personnel. Folders with induction records, exemption board records, and miscellaneous correspondence contain such documents about various individuals, usually when there is only one item on a person. Multiple documents about an individual are filed in the last section, labeled by the individual. These folders include a variety of materials: letters written to family at home, military documents, biographical information written by the individual or taken during personal interviews. Whenever possible, each individual folder contains an obituary.