Collection: Glasgow Women’s Library

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) has been providing information, resources and services since 1991. It developed from a broad-based arts organisation called Women in Profile, which was set up in 1987 with the aim of ensuring the representation of women’s culture during Glasgow’s year as the European City of Culture in 1990.

  Women in Profile comprised community artists, grass-roots activists, academics, students and broad-based arts practitioners who collectively ran a year-long season of events, workshops, exhibitions, projects and other activities before and during 1990.

  Over the course of that time Women in Profile gathered documentation and materials relating to its activities and, following consultation with the local community and women’s groups across the City of Glasgow, opened Glasgow Women’s Library in September 1991 in the Garnethill area.

  Since 1991 thousands of women have contributed to the growth and success of the Library. The collection has been largely donated and there have been scores of women involved in managing its projects, volunteering and contributing their time, expertise, visions and energies.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The GWL collection contains a large lending and reference library of over 20,000 volumes, several archive collections and historical and contemporary artifacts and ephemera relating to women’s lives, history, culture and achievements.

  GWL primarily collects records and ephemera relating to women’s lives, interests, campaigning and culture. It strengths are in ‘Second Wave’ feminist materials especially Women’s Liberation and Equality campaigning in Scotland.

  GWL’s holdings of ephemera and historical and contemporary artefacts of importance include:

  • The Suffragette newspaper (1913 original, covering the death of Emily Wilding Davidson, killed under the King’s Horse)

  • A collection of suffragette and anti-suffragette postcards, mostly ‘postally used’ and dated between 1903 and 1914

  • Suffragette jewellery, anti-suffragette clocks and a complete set of PANKO card game, c.1900-1920s

  • Album of Alice Moakes, 1910, with writings and sketches, including coloured drawings of Loch Awe and a suffragette

  • Historical and contemporary artefacts, such as a Victorian iron umbrella stand from Duke Street prison, painted by suffragettes imprisoned there

  • Travel album of Elaine Burton, Baroness Burton of Coventry (1904-1991 – athlete and politician), containing postcards and press cuttings of her trip to the USA on the Mauritania, as a representative of the government, c.1940s.

  • Copies of The Scotswoman, a one-off issue of The Scotsman, published to celebrate International Women’s Day

  • Original artworks, including the Hannah Frank print collection (1925–1955) and Margaret Meade Whalley designs (c.1950s–1990)

  • Photographs held within numerous collections, including photographs of marches, women workers during WWII, women’s suffrage campaigners and anti-nuclear demonstrations

  • Calendars, diaries, badges, posters, reports, pamphlets, flyers and T-shirts relating to women’s campaigns, political movements and organisations, and particularly strong representation of second wave feminism.

  Our collections include:

  • The Equal Opportunities Commission Archive – a complete set of catalogued materials produced by and charting the work of the EOC from its inception in 1975 to 2007.

  • Edinburgh Women’s Centre Collection – donated c.1995 following the closure of Edinburgh Women’s Centre and comprising a collection of early second wave feminism materials and papers relating to the Centre. Also, the Edinburgh Women’s Liberation Archive.

  • Archives of the Scottish Abortion Campaign – collection of papers relating to the Scotland-wide campaign, along with the organisation’s banner and the National abortion campaign and the Pro-choice abortion archives.

  • Archives of the Family Planning Association – papers from the early family planning movement in Scotland, dating from the 1960s onwards.

  • Women’s Church Resource Group Collection – collection of journals and papers relating to women involved in faith groups in Scotland.

  • Meridian Archive – archive materials from Meridian Black and Minority Ethnic Women’s Centre, Glasgow, including photographs, papers and banners.

  • Scottish Women’s Aid (Press cuttings and oral history project) – press cuttings from the 1970s onwards, relating to press coverage of domestic abuse issues and cases in Scotland and the Glasgow Women’s Aid, Women Live in Scotland archive and the ENACT (Education Networking Action Culture Training) archives.

  • Harpies and Quines, Scottish Feminist Magazine – a complete run of copies and its related archive.

  • Take Root Self Build Group – Glasgow Women’s Self Build Group, 1993-date.

  • The Lesbian Archive and Information Centre (LAIC) – established as the Lesbian Archives Collective in London in 1984 and transferred to Glasgow Women’s Library in September 1995. Comprised of printed materials ranging from books, reports, pamphlets and theses to biographical cuttings, 1900–2007. The Archive also includes several collections of personal papers and approx. 1,000 (mainly black and white) photographs of individual women, social events and demonstrations, 1972–2007.

  • Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group (part of the LAIC Collection) – began in 1982, funded by Camden Council. The Camden Black Lesbian Group was established in 1984 as a support group. The collection consists of two sections: the book materials and the papers of the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group.

  • Lesbian Line Glasgow Archives, relating to the organisation until its closure in the mid-1990s.

  • Oral History Project, including tapes and transcripts of testimonies of lesbians in Glasgow.

  • Women of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Legacy Collection, including items donated by competitors, broadcasters, volunteers

  • Badges of Honour, including items that reflect the theme of how badge wearing women changed the world

  • Zero Tolerance, including items that tell the story of the Zero Tolerance campaign

  • Several individual women’s collections – including journalist and writer, Sue Innes; campaigners Jenny Hills and Jackie Forster; writers Anna Livia, Emma Donoghue, Rosemary Auchmuty; filmmaker Lucinda Broadbent.

  • A range of Scottish women’s periodicals, with a particular strength in Second Wave feminist publications of the1970s and 1980s.

  • Collections of knitting and dress patterns c.1930s–1980s, lifestyle magazines and cook books.

  In addition, GWL has built up its own collection that documents women’s history and achievements in Scotland. This includes GWL’s news-cuttings archive referring to women in Scotland and women’s issues collected by GWL from c.1980s to 2000, and archive material, oral history projects and exhibitions generated from its lifelong learning programmes.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC