Spotlight: The Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles

The Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, California, collects a wide range of materials documenting film as both an art form and an industry. The library is supported through the Academy Foundation, the educational and cultural arm of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

One of the world's most extensive and comprehensive research collections on the subject of motion pictures, the library holds more than 32,000 books; 2,400 periodical titles; 80,000 screenplays; 300,000 clipping files; 35,000 posters; lobby cards, pressbooks and other advertising ephemera; over 10 million photographs; over 1,000 manuscript and other special collections relating to prominent industry individuals, studios and organizations; sheet music, music scores and sound recordings; production and costume sketches; artifacts; and oral histories.

The Research Library, founded in 1928 and later named the Margaret Herrick Library after a former Academy librarian and long-time executive director, maintains a world-renowned, non-circulating reference and research collection devoted to the history and development of the motion picture as an art form and as an industry. It is regarded as one of the most complete collections of film-related materials ever assembled.

Margaret Herrick was a collector of materials herself; she served as the Academy librarian until 1943 and had an interest in preserving and fostering materials since film was indeed a new technological medium at the time. Herrick is known, via rumor, as the name-coiner for the Academy Award; as legend has it, Herrick commented that the statues looked like her Uncle Oscar.

Today, the library attempts to collect every English-language book on motion pictures (histories, biographies, the film industry around the world, genre studies, technical aspects, etc.), as well as important foreign reference sources and selected books in allied fields such as television, radio, theater and music. Indeed, with a staff of 65 overseen by director Linda Mehr, the holdings range the gamut from private and special collections to sheet music, posters, even cocktail napkins scribbled on by a famous director.

Screenplays

The screenplay collection is enormous, including 9,000 films from 1910 to now. Included are scripts for silent films, foreign language films, documentaries, animated features and shorts, Academy Award winners and cult favorites.

An interesting aspect of the collection is the production stills which are stored at 55 degrees and catalogued by date.

Files which contain articles clipped from a wide range of newspapers and magazines, studio press releases, and advertising material along with photographs, are organized as Production Files, Biography Files, General Subject Files, Festival and Awards Files and Academy History Files. The Production Files may include programs, pressbooks, synopses, cast and credit sheets, and lobby cards as well as photographs, reviews, production notes and other articles. The Biography Files include photographs, articles and press releases on performers as well as those who work behind-the-scenes. Subjects covered in the General Files include censorship, colorization, locations, three-dimensional films and wide-screen systems, the motion picture industry in individual foreign countries, independent producers and distributors, film genres, individual companies, guilds, unions and associations.

Festivals Files contain information on film festivals around the world; the Awards Files cover non-Academy awards. The Academy History Files contain press releases and clippings covering the Academy Awards and all other Academy activities; documentation, including as-broadcast scripts, for Academy Awards shows; and Academy publications.

Since 1984 the library has been microfilming key Production and Biography clipping files, and has recently begun copying those in the General Subject Files. Copies of the microfiche files are available on an inter-library loan basis through the National Film Information Service.

Posters

The Herrick contains 35,000 posters dating back to 1905 and up to current releases. They are 99% donated and include feature films, shorts and documentaries. Sizes range from 1-sheet to 24-sheets. While the majority are posters produced in the United States, a considerable number are foreign-produced posters for both U.S. and non-U.S. films – they have a particularly large Polish poster collection. The library has established an ongoing conservation program to treat these fragile documents. Rare stone lithograph posters have been deacidified, archivally backed and photographed for reference and protection purposes.

A Living History of Film

The library is extremely rich in unique material documenting individuals and organizations that have figured prominently in the history of motion pictures. Among the major manuscript collections are those from such directors as George Stevens, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Sam Peckinpah and Hal Ashby.

The Herrick is open to the public on most days, but patrons can only use pencils while in the library, and books and other items are almost never released. An online intranet allows anyone access to the vast collection, but some things are simply off-limits: Thornton Wilder's handwritten first draft of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train is one of the jewels of the collection. Oral histories are hard to get your hands on since they are so fragile and can be perused by appointment only.

Studio scripts, stills and unproduced memos are guarded closely by the library as well as by the prospective studios. Indeed, certain photos, even non-studio ones, that have been rewashed and photo-dried are in very bad shape and are protected from temperature and light.

Most individuals who frequent the library are students and professors, many of whom are researching a paper or book. On a Tuesday afternoon, one can find historians rummaging through legal records, box office receipts and old copies of Variety and other newspapers – in fact on a staff of 16 reference librarians at the Herrick, each worker is assigned to a different film magazine of periodical and their upkeep, markings and clippings.

This sanctuary to the rarest of documents from the history of film appropraitely boasts the rarest of Hollywood's honors. Perched atop a shelf, overlooking former costume designer Edith Head's old oak dining room table that now serves as a desk, is an Academy Award. The Herrick acquired the Oscar when Head, a 9-time winner, simply had no more room in her house for the hardware.