Toronto Metropolitan University Archives & Special Collections hold a wide range of archival materials, cultural artifacts and rare book collections.

Archives

The Archives mandate is to acquire, preserve and make available records essential to the understanding of the University’s purposes and operation or having other historical or archival value. Within its mandate, the Archives acts as a resource facility which documents the history of the University (1948 to the present) and its antecedent institutions at St. James Square.

These institutions include:

Toronto Normal School (1852-1941)
R.C.A.F. No. 6 Initial Training Centre and Dominion-Provincial War Emergency Training Program (1941-1945)
Toronto Training and Re-establishment Institute (1945-1948)

The archival collections consist of over 925 fonds from different departments, faculty, and staff and covers a wide range of topics.

Notable fonds

Records by Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman and the world’s first neurologist in space
Multiple fonds in the Canadian Women in STEM portal
RG 646 – Centre for Advanced Technology Education
RG 704 – On the Record (begun in 1948 as Ryersonian)
RG 146 – The Eyeopener, student-run newspaper since 1967 (student newspapers)
F 404 – Jack Layton fonds

University photograph collections

RG 4 Office of Information Services, 1969 onwards, later became Department of Community Relations
RG 76 Media Centre, 1986 onwards
RG 95 School of Journalism : this fonds contains the earliest photos of TMU campus: 7,278 photographs from 1950-1963
RG 122 Department of Community Relations, 1986 onwards, later to become the Department of Development, Alumni and Community Relations
RG 395 Office of University Advancement, 1993 onwards

Health Sciences

RG 946 – The Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association fonds
RG 6 – Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing
RG 303 – School of Nutrition

Web Archive

See our archived TMU web collections here: TMU Archive-It Web Collections

Special Collections

Special Collections holdings comprise archival materials, cultural artifacts and rare book collections. The rare book collection was started by the library in 1971, and moved to Special Collections in 2008. It includes books on photography, artist books, the McGraw-Hill Ryerson Press Collection, Canadiana and an extensive collection of Victorian periodicals.

Other Special Collections and subject strengths include: