For the library staff of Walt Disney's studio, it is nothing more than regular routine to receive such strange requests as:
"Get me a close-up of a knothole!"
"Where can I get a drawing of a whale's stomach?"
"Have you anything listed on people walking under water ?"
When Walt Disney selected "Pinocchio," story of a wooden marionette who comes to life, as the feature length successor to "Snow White," studio librarians began a lengthy session of research that gained momentum as the picture went into production. First of all they combed book lists, both American and foreign, for every possible treatment of the classical story. These went to the story department, not to he copied, but to aid writers in transposing the tale to a form suitable for the medium of the animated picture.
Preliminary story research, however, is pretty much a cut and dried affair. Once the artists take up their pencils and go to work on the thousands of drawings from which emerges the finished picture – then, for the librarians, the fun begins. Phones buzz, messengers scurry the odd demands for reference material start to pour in.
Always wanting to be as accurate as possible, the Disney artist makes sure that he bases his drawing on as exact a model as he can obtain, altho he is free to give it his own individual interpretation. Hence the need for constant reference, and he immediately turns to the library – storehouse extraordinary of all manner of pictorial and written information.
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