Why do significant parts of our art libraries collections remain undiscovered and unused? Seemingly invisible to students and staff, the university archive strong room creates a barrier, preventing our students and researchers from accessing and browsing materials, as they would with our open shelf collections. What happens when archive materials are freed from their confines, brought out into the studio and explored and used by arts students? Better still, what happens when librarian, archivist and academic collaborate to make this happen, enabling increased awareness of these resources and facilitating information literacy skills learning? Conclude this with an artistic response to this method of teaching and learning and you have the Animation Archive Day at the University for the Creative Arts. The day formed part of a longer term initiative put together by the archivist and librarian to raise awareness among students and staff of the opportunities to utilize archives in their subject specific creative arts learning and education. The project recognizes the importance of allowing students to steer and interact creatively with archive use in a library context.