Lloyd Wesley Swift wrote a Master thesis titled Factors influencing the succession of brush and grass communities in a delimited habitat, dated August 1930, stored at the Bioscience Library with a call number: SD8.S977. His gift letter dated 3 June 1976 has a letterhead saying that he is a Consulting Biologist. According to this letter, the gift was addressed to Dr. Henry D. Ginsburg, who was at the time a visiting scholar in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies of the University of California at Berkeley. The origin of the Swift Family Collection manuscripts described in the following paragraphs is taken from this letter.

Lloyd Wesley Swift himself assumed that "Josephine Hall Bishop collected the Indo-Chinese manuscripts on one of her trips to the Orient." His assumption is stated before the following remarks. "With #14, Sacred Book of Cambodia, however, there is a note to James Hall, dated Bangkok, Siam, November 30, 1852 from Samuel B. House, presenting a manuscript to Hall. There is further reference to this note on an envelope with #7, The Vinaya Pitain, but I suspect the note and envelope were originally together." If the dating of the lifetime of Josephine Hall Bishop is correct, Josephine was only 11 years old by 1852. It was less likely that by that age she was already travelling to Siam. Moreover, the name "Samuel B. House" is a misreading for "Samuel R. House", a prominent American minister cum physician who went to Siam. Then, on the back of the same note where House marks his present to Hall, there is also a note saying that Sacred Book of Cambodia is from Rev. S. Bush. The latter is actually Rev. Stephen Bush, who graduated from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1848. He was a friend of Rev. Stephen Mattoon, who graduated earlier in 1946. All of them went to Siam. In fact, in 1856 Rev. Stephen Mattoon was the first appointed U.S. Consul to Siam. The more complete history of their missionary works is written by House himself and is available in "Chapter XXI. History of the Missions in Siam and Laos", pages 351-418. It is a chapter in a book edited by Mary Backhus, titled Siam and Laos, as seen by Our American Missionaries, published in 1884. On this account, there are at least two more books published afterward. The first is authored by George Haws Feltus, titled Samuel Reynolds House of Siam; Pioneer Medical Missionary: 1847-1976, published in 1924. Then, Kenneth E. Wells wrote History of Protestant Work in Thailand: 1828-1958, which was published in 1958. In addition, there was also a communication by Rev. Samuel R. House to the US during the time he was in Siam. He sent a letter dated 29 January 1849, to the famous Siamese Twins, Mr. Chang and Eng Bunker, who were already residing in the US. This letter is published in the biography of those twins, written by Judge Jesse Franklin Graves, titled Life of Eng and Chang Bunker, the original Siamese Twins.

For example, Harald Hundius' studies reported in Phonologie und Schrift des Nordthai, Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1990.

The Library of Congress subject headings are assigned for all twenty-three pieces of palm leaf or paper manuscripts in consultation with Professor Justin McDaniel at the University of California, Riverside. The South/Southeast Asia Library owes special gratitude to Professor McDaniel for his special efforts.

The following gives a physical description of each manuscript. The number in front of the title of the manuscript is the sequence number of the manuscript. This number is written on top of the archival box, in which the manuscript is stored.