The collection is housed in Purdy Library, on the 4th floor, room 450. The collection is closed. It never had a true shelflist of its own. 24 hours advance request is needed to have access to items from Ramsey. The Simons Collection of Michigan literature was donated by Leonard N. Simons.
Holdings are mostly nineteenth century monographs.
Its main subject is related to the history of the NW territory, Detroit metropolitan area and the State of Michigan. Additional feature of the collection consists in its special binding. The collection includes about 1.150 volumes. It also contains some rare materials, one periodical, a few manuscripts and some duplicates. New items are continuously added to this collection.