The library declined to disclose the purchase price.

The archive also contributes to a small resurgence in the conversation around Mr. Rollins, who has not performed publicly for the past four years because of ailing health. A campaign recently began to have the Williamsburg Bridge, where he practiced in isolation almost daily from 1959 to 1961, renamed for him. And on June 9, at Flushing Town Hall, his longtime confidant Jimmy Heath will lead the Queens Jazz Orchestra in a tribute concert.

It could take years to digitize and catalog the Rollins archive, which includes some notes from the bridge period; then the archive will be spread across four of the center’s five divisions and made searchable online. The center does not have plans for major exhibitions of the material, but Mr. Rollins’s home and studio recordings will become part of the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, which is to be renovated soon.

When Mr. Rollins hit the national jazz scene in the early 1950s, he seemed to possess a new kind of energy. Unlike Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young, whose mantle he picked up, Mr. Rollins rarely purred into his horn. He sounded as if he were trying to push himself fully into every note, intentionally and bodily and without guile — as if it were the only way he would have any shot at getting his point across.

Mr. Rollins almost never performed with a large ensemble, preferring to maximize his direct contact with the listener. He introduced the saxophone-bass-drums trio before almost anyone else, and, in concert, his solos could often run well over 10 minutes.