The papers of Veneta Nielsen contain correspondence, poetry, other writings, personal and professional papers, and a collection of May Swenson materials. At the time the collection was donated to Special Collections and Archives, no clear original order remained. As a result, the following order has been placed on the collection. Outgoing correspondence is arranged alphabetically by recipients' name. (Nielsen often addressed her letters by first name only, so researchers should check under both first and last names.) Incoming correspondence is arranged chronologically, with gaps throughout the run. Nielsen's poetry has been filed alphabetically by the first key word in the title or in the first sentence. Collections of poems compiled by Nielsen (typically for poetry competitions) have been placed in separate folders and then filed alphabetically with the other poetry by the first key word in the collection title. Researchers should note that Nielsen frequently retyped poems by other authors for her own files. These poems have been culled out whenever they have been identified as such, but some unidentified "third-party" poems may remain in the collection. If a critique of an individual poem or collection of poems was found with the manuscript, it was placed in the same file.