收集(shōu jí) - to collect, to gather in Mandarin

收集 (shōu jí) is collecting on purpose: stamps, data, evidence, opinions, rainwater. The point is that scattered things are deliberately brought together into one place, and the object can be physical or abstract with equal ease.

Keep it apart from 收拾, which sounds similar and means to tidy up or pack away. 收拾房间 is cleaning your room; 收集房间 is not a sentence anyone would say. The near neighbour 搜集 exists too, with a hint of searching things out rather than simply accumulating them.

The trap is the English verb collect in its everyday errand sense. Collecting a parcel, collecting the children from school and collecting a debt are not 收集 at all: those are 取, 接 and 收. Reserve 收集 for building up a collection or a body of information.