Oscar Tour LA Photo Gallery: Disney Animation Research Library (ARL)
Written by Dan Sarto
One of the highlights of the week was a morning spent at Disney's Animation Research Library (ARL). Housed in the non-descript former feature animation studio, the library houses more than 65 million pieces of animation art representing over 80 years of work from Walt Disney Animation. Formerly housed in the basement of the Animation department in the aptly named "Morgue," the library opened in its current location in 1989. Complete with fire supression systems, climate controled vaults and state of the art scanning and database systems, the library serves both to preserve the company's heritage as well as to provide an inhouse resource for studio personnel needing access to the immense repository of Disney animation assets. If you love animation, or have any sense of animation history, then the Disney ARL is a little slice of heaven. Actually, it's the whole pie.