The statutes of Trinity College direct the College Archivist to “advise on the management and disposition of College records and to acquire, preserve, and make available for use those College and other records of archival importance to the College.” The Trinity College Archives follows the principle of ‘total archives’ and strives to document the cultural, social, academic and administrative life of the College.
The collection includes the institutional records of the College, records of student organizations, and private papers of individuals associated with Trinity College.
The first College Archivist was Dr. George W. Spragge, a graduate of the College and a former Provincial Archivist of Ontario, who began to systematically collect historical material in 1963. In 2008 the position of Archivist was endowed by Dr. Ruth M. Bell, in honour of her first husband, Professor William Rolph (4T0) and his uncle, Dr. Frederick Rolph, a graduate of the Trinity Medical College. In 2017 a newly renovated space opened, providing the archives with a climate controlled vault, a reading room, processing room and exhibit space.
The current Rolph-Bell Archivist is Sylvia Lassam: 416-978-2019 and sylvia.lassam@utoronto.ca.