William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, Research archives at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections is the principal repository for rare books, archives, maps and historical material at McMaster University, housed in Mills Memorial Library in Hamilton, Ontario. Its holdings cover Canadian literature, politics, popular culture and business history, 20th-century war and peace with an emphasis on the Holocaust and Resistance, and a collection of 18th-century books and journals. It is also home to the Bertrand Russell Archives, more than 140 metres of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs and audio-visual records.

The archive was named after William Ready, a university librarian who acquired significant collections for the institution. His most notable achievement was securing extensive materials from a prominent philosopher for McMaster's holdings.

The holdings include the personal papers of writers such as Farley Mowat, Pierre Berton and Austin Clarke, and the fonds of publishers Macmillan Canada and McClelland & Stewart. A sample of Alice Munro's handwriting from those publisher fonds appeared on a Canada Post stamp in 2015.

The division occupies Mills Memorial Library on the McMaster campus in Hamilton, Ontario. Holdings are consulted on site rather than borrowed, and the Russell material alone fills more than 140 metres of shelving, so identify the fonds you need before travelling. The Bertrand Russell Archives, including his personal library and furniture from his Welsh home in Penrhyndeudraeth, sit within the same division.

The Bertrand Russell Archives hold over 140 metres of manuscripts, correspondence and photographs, plus Russell's personal library and furniture from his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales. His papers were bought in 1968 for $520,000, then the highest sum paid for one person's papers, and the first transfer arrived in 11 filing cabinets and 15 metal trunks.