Beverly Hills Centennial

As part of the City of Beverly Hills Centennial Celebration, the Academy presents tours of the Margaret Herrick Library and a photo exhibition.

A Closer Look: Exploring the Academy's Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study

On July 12, for the first time since the opening of the Academy's Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in 1991, the public will be invited to take a journey through film history and get a behind-the-scenes look at this world-renowned research facility. Since its earliest days, the Academy has maintained a reference library dedicated to documenting the history and development of the motion picture as an art form and as an industry. In the late 1980s, the Academy proposed to re-purpose the abandoned City of Beverly Hills Water Treatment Plant No. 1 – a 40,000 square-foot building at the corner of La Cienega and Olympic boulevards – as a home for its ever-expanding research collections.

On tours led by library staff, visitors will be able to explore the photograph, manuscript and graphic arts collections, as well the paper conservation lab and climate-controlled storage vaults. These areas reveal the inner workings of the library and the staff's efforts to process, catalog and preserve material that is then made accessible to researchers. The public will also be able to enjoy an exhibition of photographs, "Star-Studded Stomping Ground: The Academy Celebrates the Beverly Hills Centennial," devoted to the relationship between motion pictures and the city of Beverly Hills and culled from the vast holdings of the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.