Margaret Herrick Library
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The Margaret Herrick Library has a diverse collection including screenplays, movie production records, correspondence and other materials pertaining to film studios, production companies, individuals, and professional organizations. According to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the library holds 32,000 books, 80,000 screenplays, and 300,000 files of clippings. Other materials at the library are 35,000 posters, 10 million photographs, copies of 2,400 periodicals, costume and production and costume sketches, sheet music and musical scores, and advertising materials, including press books and lobby cards.
Their digital collections has a curated selection of lobby cards, books, film magazines and industry publications, totaling 35,000 items.
The library also collects and maintains oral histories of the industry.
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History
The original research library (named the Academy Library) was established in 1928, a year after the founding of AMPAS.
In 1936, Margaret Herrick began serving as the head librarian, holding her position until 1943. Dedicated to AMPAS' mission of broadening the film industry's educational and cultural outreach, Herrick was responsible for establishing the library as a world-class research institution. In 1947, Herrick was responsible for the first acquisition of an archival collection: the William Selig collection. In 1952, Herrick negotiated to have the Academy Awards televise their broadcast, which allowed for the awards ceremony and the library to become financially independent from the major Hollywood studios. She was promoted to executive director in 1945, which she served until her retirement in 1971. At her retirement ceremony, the institution was renamed the Margaret Herrick Library.
Since its inception, the Academy library had offices in the Roosevelt Hotel. In 1975, after occupying rented space across the city, the Academy moved its office spaces and its library to a seven-story building in the Beverly Hills business district. However, the library's collection began to outgrow its storage place. A year later, the City of Beverly Hills abandoned its namesake Waterworks building, in favor of obtaining its water supply from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District. By 1987, the building had suffered structural damage and was vandalized with graffiti, and was proposed for demolition. However, members of the Academy toured the derelict building, and considered it as a potential new site of the library.
In 1988, the Academy and the city signed a 55-year lease agreement to renovate the building into a new location for the library, on a rehabilitation budget of $6 million. On November 12, 1991, the library reopened at its current location, the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study.