This collection contains 30 volumes covering the events and notes from novitiate classes between 1940 and 1968 and a single journal from 1987. Each novitiate class, which ran from August to June of the following year, tasked one novice to chronicle their experiences. Each year comprises one volume with the exception of the classes of 1953-1954/1954-1955, which are house in one volume.

There are two volumes from the cooperator novitiate and house of studies at St. Thomas Aquinas Priory in River Forest, IL with entries from 1946 to 1965.