The Feminist Library was founded as the Women's Research and Resources Centre in 1975 by a group of women concerned about the future of the

Fawcett Library The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...

to ensure that the history of the

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

survived. The founders included feminist academics like Diana Leonard and

Leonore Davidoff Leonore Davidoff (31 January 1932 – 19 October 2014) was a feminist historian and sociologist who pioneered new approaches to women's history and gender relations, including through her analysis of the gendered division of roles in public ...

History

The library started out as a small collection of contemporary material, but is now considered to be the most significant library of feminist material in England, containing some 7500 books, of which around 5000 are non-fiction, 500 poetry publications, and 1500 periodical titles, many self-published, spanning over about 85 metres of shelving. There is also a large number of pamphlets, currently held at the

Bishopsgate Institute Bishopsgate Institute is a cultural institute in the Bishopsgate Without area of the City of London, located near Liverpool Street station and Spitalfields market. The institute was established in 1895. It offers a cultural events programme, c ...

2003 crisis

The library faced a financial crisis in 2003 when Lambeth Council dramatically increased the rent on the building housing the collections. Four years later, in 2007, the management committee called an emergency meeting as a final attempt to gather support. Fortunately, the meeting was well attended and the library was saved, although it still struggles today, depending on grants to survive.

Librarians for Tomorrow

In January 2010, the library announced that it had received a grant from Awards for All, which it intended to use to train volunteers in radical librarianship, using the library itself as a resource. In March 2010, fifteen volunteers were chosen from many applicants and they began working at the library in April 2010. One of the trainees began writing an anonymous blog about her experiences.

Further updates

Opening hours had increased from 2013 to 2014 but remained dependent on the availability of volunteers. In 2015 the Library celebrated its 40th anniversary, while by 2018 it was open afternoons or evenings from Tuesday to Saturday.

High ratio of fiction to non-fiction

The amount of poetry and fiction in the library is unusual for a special collection focused on a political movement. The reason for this is that the library wanted to ensure individual women were represented as part of their liberation, as explained by Gail Chester, a member of the library's management committee, in an interview with Anne Welsh in 2007.

References

External links

Feminist Library websiteFeminist Library catalogueAdventures of a Radical Feminist Librarian
, written by one of the library's volunteers.
Feminist Libraries & Archives Network
{{Authority control Feminism in England Women's studies Libraries in the London Borough of Lambeth 1975 establishments in England 1975 in London Libraries established in 1975 Women in London