The papers of Alan H. Shapley (1919-2006) span the years 1934-1996 with the bulk of the collection dating 1948-1985. The papers are mostly in English with some documents in French and Russian. They focus on the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958, a venture of scientists from many countries to coordinate the monitoring of geophysical and solar-terrestrial phenomenon and to make the resulting data freely available worldwide. During 1956-1957 Shapley co-chaired the United States Committee on the International Geophysical Year, an organ of the National Academy of Sciences that cooperated at the global level with the Special Committee for the International Geophysical Year, an organ of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). The papers are arranged in seven series: Personal File, Organizations File, Government Agencies, Subject File, Miscellany, Addendum, and Oversize.

The Organizations File follows national scientific organizations and their international counterparts during the run-up to the IGY in the early 1950s through the critical period 1957-1958, and then documents the decades after the IGY when the Year's initiatives were developed into institutions such as the World Data Centers system and the early space programs. National science organizations documented in the series include the American Geophysical Union, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences, which accounts for the largest set of files. Subfile topics include United States Committee on the International Geophysical Year, Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Research, Geophysics Research Board, Space Science Board, and World Data Centers.

International organizations represented in this series include the International Council of Scientific Unions and its member and spinoff organizations. Those include the Special Committee on the International Geophysical Year, or CSAGI, its French acronym; CODATA, or Committee on Data for Science and Technology; International Union of Radio Science, or URSI, its French acronym; International World Day Service; and the Panel on World Data Centers. A file on the ICSU spinoff COSPAR, or Committee on Space Research, is one of many files documenting early space programs. Also relating to early space probes is a file on the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel, a group that used World War II-era German V-2 rockets to initiate near earth space exploration in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The entirety of Alan Shapley's thirty-eight year government career was spent with various laboratories and agencies of the Commerce Department. Documented in the Government Agencies series are his eighteen years with the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory and stints with the Environmental Science Services Administration and its successor the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Shapley was a geophysicist who specialized in the ionosphere, the "radio mirror" layer or the earth's upper atmosphere that makes long-range "bounced" radio wave transmission and radar possible. Ionosphere research and monitoring figures prominently in the Government Agencies and in the Organizations series, particularly in files relating to the International Geophysical Year.

During 1962-1964 Shapley was a doctoral candidate at the University College of Wales in Aberystwth, where in addition to his studies he continued with his organizational and governmental duties, much of it relating to the International Years of the Quiet Sun, 1964-1965. Because the file on the University College focuses on these duties and not Shapley's academic efforts, it is part of the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory file in the Government Agencies series.

Shapley visited Antarctica in 1959 and 1969 on ionosphere monitoring projects. The conduct of science in Antarctica, ionospheric research and monitoring, and solar-terrestrial research are well documented throughout the Organizations and Government Agencies series.

The Subject File includes files relating to the International Years of the Quiet Sun, 1964-1965, and to a post-International Geophysical Year period spanning 1969-1983. The Miscellany series contains speeches and writings by Shapley and others.