The Joyce Nielsen papers date from 1951 to 1996 and measure 10.25 linear feet. The papers are arranged in six series: Correspondence; Personal information; Business Ventures; Community service; Campaigns; and Iowa General Assembly. The bulk of the collection pertains to Nielsen's campaigns and work as a state representative in the Iowa General Assembly.

The Correspondence series (1953-1991) consists of letters sent and received by the Nielsen family between 1963 and 1991. This series includes letters written by Joyce Jensen to her future husband, Eric Nielsen, during their courtship in the 1950s. Letters between Joyce Nielsen and her former co-workers at HACAP provide an inside look at the operation of this social services agency.

The Personal information series (1951-1986) includes letters, essays, and newspaper clippings pertaining to the Nielsen family. A small folder of biographical information pertaining to Eric Nielsen includes papers chronicling his experiences at the University of Minnesota and his days as a state champion marksman. This series includes photographs enclosed in Christmas cards received by the Nielsen family from 1966 to 1979.

The Business ventures series (1977-1994) contains papers pertaining to Joyce Nielsen's entrepreneurial activities. The bulk of this series refers to Nielsen's activities as president of Nielsen Financial Consultants. The insurance files contain investment guides, financial planning advice, newspaper and magazine articles about women and money, and programs from educational seminars organized by Nielsen. Materials from Nielsen's driver's education business for women complete the series.

The Community service series (1959-1996) includes records of Nielsen's work with non-profit organizations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It contains the records of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP), which include privacy-protected interviews with aggrieved tenants and problem landlords in the Cedar Rapids area and the records of an early tenant-run co-op. This series contains a highly detailed study of persons who dropped out of Cedar Rapids high schools in 1970 conducted by the League of Women Voters of Cedar Rapids. This series includes records from the YWCA of Cedar Rapids, which was a hub of feminist activism during the 1970s. Records from the Women's Emergency Shelter contain information about domestic violence, including statistics and some aggregated case history information on clients of the Shelter as well as budgets, publicity files, and an extensive folder of public discourse on the topic of spousal abuse. It also features more general information on spousal abuse victim advocacy in Iowa, collected by Joyce Nielsen during her work as an advocate for battered women. Newspaper clippings from the Cedar Rapids Gazette and other area papers complete the series.

The Campaigns series (1988-1992) includes materials from Nielsen's campaigns to serve as representative of District 55, which includes Cedar Rapids, in the Iowa General Assembly. Nielsen was the Democratic nominee in 1988, 1990, and 1992; she won in 1988 and 1990, but lost in 1992. This is the largest series of the collection, at three linear feet. It includes materials related to the nuts and bolts of running a local campaign, including fundraising records, campaign donor lists, brochures, advertisements, newspaper clippings, information about her Republican opponents, correspondence, and surveys completed by Nielsen.

The Iowa General Assembly series (1989-1992) consists primarily of issue files maintained by Nielsen during her two terms as a state representative, from 1989 until 1992. Nielsen collected published and unpublished reports, correspondence, meeting records, and newspaper clippings on a variety of issues, including the state budget, education, child support, gender neutral insurance, economic development, teen pregnancy, the death penalty, mental health, parental consent requirements for minors to receive abortions, and sex offenders. This series includes correspondence between legislators, correspondence between Nielsen and her constituents, Nielsen's position papers and speeches, records from the Iowa Women's Legislative Caucus, and materials related to lobbying. It also contains House and Senate bills from the 1990 and 1992 sessions of the Iowa General Assembly. The series is arranged chronologically by legislative session. Folders within each series are arranged alphabetically.