The TWU Archives was informally established in 1982, on the strength of grant funding acquired by Library Director David Twiest, who began to accummulate school records, as well as the archival records of Robert N. Thompson; in 1982-1983 he hired a contract archivist to begin to manage these materials.

For some years, very little work was accomplished, owing to a lack of funding.
In 1988, Ted Goshulak accepted the position of reference librarian; his responsibilities included general oversight of the archives department, which was by now established as part of the library.
In 1994 Sylvia Stopforth was hired to work on a part-time basis as reference librarian and archivist. Between 1995 and 2003, Stopforth successfully applied for over $33,000 in provincial and federal grant funding, which was applied to salaries, shelving, supplies, and computer hardware and software. Student assistants were hired with funding from the Work Studies Program, a provincial program that was cut ca. 2002.