The Marcel Dick Papers consist of compositions, sketchbooks, correspondence, clippings, oral history transcripts, programs, and lectures. Spanning the years 1921-2006, the collection documents his career as a composer and music educator in Europe and the United States. The collection is arranged into the following series and subseries: Series 1: Compositions; Subseries 1: Chamber Music; Subseries 2: Orchestral Music; Subseries 3: Miscellaneous; Series 2: Personal Papers; Subseries 1: Miscellaneous; Subseries 2: Lectures. The Marcel Dick Papers were acquired by the Special Collections Research Center at the Kelvin Smith Library of Case Western Reserve University in two gifts from Marcel Dick in 1981 and from his daughter, Suzanne Dick in 2000. Additions in the form of commemorative programs are added on occasion.

Series 1: Compositions, 1921-1984. Though Dick began writing as a young man, the earliest composition in the collection dates to 1921. Dick did not compose between 1922 and 1934, roughly the years he worked with Arnold Schoenberg, claiming that -working with Schoenberg you were too overwhelmed by Schoenberg himself to compose.-

Subseries 1: Chamber Music, 1921-1984. Includes quintets, quartets, trios, duos, and solo works. There are many copies of the same piece as well, for example: there is a handwritten copy of the score for his work An Irrelevant Manifesto as well as a photocopy of the score and the handwritten parts of the cello, oboe, trumpet, harp, and percussion. String Quartet No. 1, his first work completed after working with Schoenberg, is included in this subseries as well as his three other string quartet compositions. Trios, duos, and songs are also part of this subseries.

Subseries 2: Orchestral Music, 1932-1982. Includes symphonies and compositions for small orchestras. Examples include First Symphony, considered his major work, Symphony for Strings and Variations, Interludes, and Cadenzas for Small Orchestra, and Adagio and Rondo, which introduced the composer to New York audiences.

Subseries 3: Miscellaneous, 1921-1977. Includes handwritten manuscripts with tone rows, which Dick used as his blueprints for compositions or musical sketches that may or may not have been used in later works. This subseries also has sketchbooks dated 1921-1977, many of which contain tone rows and musical ideas in his hand and unidentified full works.

Series 2: Personal Papers, 1921-2006. Includes personal papers consisting of correspondence, clippings, lectures given to Cleveland area interest groups, and the rough and final transcripts of an oral history conducted by Anne Trenkamp.

Subseries 1: Miscellaneous, 1923-2006 and undated. Includes correspondence, clippings, citizenship papers, event programs and two copies each of the rough draft and the final transcript of an oral history conducted by Dr. Anne Trenkamp in a series of interviews conducted in 1974. A copy of Studies in the Schoenbergian Movement in Vienna and the United States Essays in Honor of Marcel Dick. Trenkamp, Anne, and Suess, John G., editors, 1990, has been filed in this subseries as well.

Subseries 2: Lectures, 1961-1984. Consists of public lectures given to Cleveland area interest groups on a range of musical topics.