About the Archives of Ontario

The Archives of Ontario has been collecting, preserving and providing access to Ontario’s public and private records since 1903. Over the last 104 years, we have continued to expand our collections while keeping pace with the best archival standards and practices.

The Archives has a broad and ever-growing group of customers who access our collections in person, online and through their local libraries: the general public, researchers, students, teachers, the arts community, journalists, genealogists, lawyers, law enforcement agencies, government officials, and commissions of inquiry, among others.

Our customers have access to a unique and multi-faceted collection that includes records dating back to the late 16th century and contains everything from hand-written ledgers to electronic files, hand-drawn maps, architectural drawings, and photographs, films and sound recordings.

• Our holdings grow by 15,000 cubic feet per year.
• We have over 310,000 feet of textual records or over 58 miles of one-cubic-foot boxes.
• The Government Records Centre holds over a million cubic feet of records for ongoing use by ministries and agencies.
• Our collections have:
  • over 1.7 million photographs
  • more than 200,000 architectural plans
  • approximately 40,000 maps
  • over 40,000 audio, video and film recordings
  • almost 2,500 historical and contemporary works of art in the Government of Ontario Art Collection administered by the Archives.

In 2009 the Archives of Ontario will be moving to a long-awaited new and modern building on the York University campus in Toronto. This will be the first time in its over 100 years of existence that the Archives will be housed in a purpose-built facility that will both meet international archival standards and make it easier to showcase some of the Archives’ most valuable collections.

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