Collection Highlights

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

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

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

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 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:

Rare books

• 1890s Victorian Periodicals, including The Yellow Book, The Dial, The Venture, The Savoy, The Pageant and The Elf
  • Yellow Nineties 2.0 online database
• 2015.003 – War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA) WWII Comic Book Collection
• 2021.08 – Canadian Community Cookbook Collection
• 2017.001 – Children’s Literature Collection
  • Children’s Literature Archive website
• 2017.014 – McGraw-Hill Ryerson Press Collection
  • Imprinting Canada: The McGraw-Hill Ryerson Press Collection online exhibit
•  2013.007 – Robert MacIntosh City of Toronto Book Collection
• 2015.004 – First Edition Photobook Award by TMU photography students

Film & photography history

• 2005.001 – Kodak Canada Corporate Archives and Heritage Collection
• 2005.006 – Heritage Camera Collection
• 2018.10 – Ken Van Velzer (Polaroid) Collection
• 2008.001 – Lorne Shields Historical Photographs Collections
• 2017.010 – Historical Photographic Processes Collection
• 2018.09 – Bass Stereoscopic Photography Collection

Architecture and governance

• 2009.002 – Canadian Architect Magazine Photographs fonds
• 2015.005 – Design Archive Photographic Collection
• 2018.008 – Peter Di Gangi Papers on Indigenous governance in Canada

Theatre, media and television

• 2018.002 – Hot Docs Fonds 
• 2021.12 – Paul Christie Theatre Program Collection
• 2017.017 – Magic Lantern Slide Collection
• 2010.003 – Paddy Sampson Fonds
• 2012.005 – Robert Hackborn Fonds
• 2005.005 – Photography & Film Technology Collection