Dave Smith (archivist)
Dave Rollin Smith (October 13, 1940 – February 15, 2019) was the founder and chief archivist of Walt Disney Archives at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.[1][2]
Dave Smith
February 15, 2019 (aged 78)
American
Chief Archivist at Walt Disney Archives
Early life[edit]
Smith was born on October 13, 1940, and raised in Pasadena, California. He appreciated Disney movies as a child and, having lived in California, visited Disneyland frequently.[3] He graduated from UC Berkeley and spent a year and a half as an intern at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He then moved back to California and worked as a librarian at UCLA for five years.[4]
In the late 1960s, Smith was working on a bibliography on Walt Disney when he first heard of a possible archive being created by The Walt Disney Company. Smith, still working at UCLA at the time, wrote to the Disney Company with an offer of his services, which was accepted.[5][6]