Masters, voice-over: From Ink & Paint, I made my way to the final resting place of Disney's animation artwork-- a secure, climate-controlled archive once known as "The Morgue," now called the Animation Research Library.

Fox Carney showed me inside.

Carney: Come on in here, Nathan.

We have some original artwork that we'd love to show you.

Masters: This is stuff the public doesn't often get to see.

Carney: No.

On this side of the table are some of the oldest pieces of artwork in our collection.

Masters: Oh, wow.

Carney: So, we have from the "Alice Comedies," we're talking 1924, 1925.

Masters: So, it's Walt Disney's first years in L.A. Carney: Yes.

Masters: Wow.

Carney: These drawings are from that period of time, but it almost looks like they've been drawn yesterday.

Masters: I mean, it really does.

You've taken good care of them.

They're well-preserved.

Carney: And these are animation drawings from the very first publicly released "Oswald."

And some of these films, we don't even have the films.

Masters: You just have these original animator's drawings.

Carney: We just have the drawings.

Masters: Wow... Carney: You know, talking about things that are lost, we're always on the search for trying to find some of these films, both the "Oswald" films and all the "Alice" films because, you know, it helps us broaden our understanding of what everybody was working on at the time and what they resulted in.

Masters: It's amazing to think that there are films that are-- would otherwise be lost to history, if not for this library.

Carney: Exactly.

We've learned over the years that the drawings are just as important as that final film.

We have about 65 million pieces of production art material-- Masters: 65 million?

Carney: in our collection, yes.

Think about it.

Masters: Wow!

Carney: Concept art, story sketches, animation drawings, layout drawings, background paintings.

Anything that went into the shorts and the features that Walt Disney Animation Studios made from the 1920s to current day is what we take care of.

And every one of those pieces of artwork has a value.

Masters: We're going to the origins of feature animation.

Carney: Yes, right.

We're going back to our first feature.

So if we wanted to see artwork from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," we just have to open up the cabinets, and here we are.

And to give you an idea of how much art we have... Masters: Yeah.

Carney: We begin with the first box of animation.

You just stay there.

Masters: OK!

Carney: And we continue all the way along here for animation drawings, animation drawings, all the way here.

Clean-up animation drawings, oversized animation drawings.

Then we get into some exposure sheets, layout drawings, story sketches, background paintings, concept art, all the way to right here.

And that's not all, because we have entire shelves of binders of story sketches just behind you of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Masters: That's really what makes this library so remarkable.

Carney: Exactly.

Masters: Right?

And there are a lot of animation outfits in the city-- Carney: Yes.

Masters: but most of them don't have libraries like this.

Carney: Right.

And Walt had to think of this way ahead of time.