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Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape and his business partner Wren Howard. The firm established a reputation for high quality design, production winning more Booker Prizes and short listings than any other publishers. After Cape’s death in 1960 the firm later merged with three other London publishing houses and in 1987 was taken over by Random House.

The Josephine Butler Society, originally known as the Ladies National Association (LNA), was founded by Josephine Butler (1828 – 1906), and was created in order to oppose the Contagious Disease Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869. These Acts focussed on suppressing venereal disease in the armed forces. The 1869 act controversially forced women suspected of being a prostitute to be examined and, if found to be infected, be quarantined for up to three months. The LNA campaigned against such measures, and in 1886 the Contagious Diseases Acts were repealed. The LNA further campaigned against sex trafficking and child prostitution, and it was their efforts that raised the age of consent to 16 in 1885, as well as introducing measures to suppress brothels and prevent trafficking. In 1915, the LNA joined with the British Branch of the International Abolitionist Federation (IAF), also founded by Josephine Butler, to become the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH). The society took Josephine Butler’s name in 1962. The society acts to this day as a pressure group campaigning against the legalisation of prostitution, the trafficking of women and the marginalisation of those vulnerable to being forced into the profession.

LesBeWell was established in March 1994 by a group of lesbian feminists including public health worker Gudrun Limbrick. The core team comprised around 10-12 women, and together they produced a regular lesbian health newsletter called Dykenosis, distributed at LGBT venues and women's spaces.

The collective also organised two conferences on lesbian health in 1995 and 1996, both of which were held in Birmingham. Toward the end of their life, they undertook a lesbian health audit which surveyed over 300 women; the results were not published until 2008, around a decade after LesBeWell's dissolution.

Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights (LAGER) was a charity organisation which advised lesbians and gay men experiencing employment discrimination connected to their sexuality. They also conducted and published research into homophobic discrimination in the workplace and recruitment practices, including a report which quantified the forms and frequency of homophobic discrimination as it was experienced by their participants.

Funded by the Association of London Government (now London Councils), LAGER ceased to exist when its funding was rescinded in 2003.

The Archive began in London in 1984, firstly under the name of London Lesbian Archive and later as the Lesbian Archive and Information Centre (LAIC). It was funded by the Greater London Council, supporting the wages of one full-time and two part-time workers to develop and sustain a collection of UK lesbian history and culture. LAIC operated out of the London Women's Centre at Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, London, along with many other feminist collectives and women's organisations. Like Glasgow Women’s Library’s own collection, materials in the archive were all donated.

In the early years the archive collection mainly comprised lesbian books including literature, pulp fiction and a significant amount of lesbian & gay as well as feminist non-fiction. It received donations of duplicates from other feminist libraries and archives in the UK, such as Bath Feminist Archive (which is now incorporated into the collection of Feminist Archives South). LAIC also took donations of journals and pamphlets, oral histories, foreign language materials, organisational records, press clippings and manuscripts from individual women, and by the late 1980s the LAIC had amassed an impressive and unique collection of lesbian women’s materials. The collection ranges from organisational records and personal archives to journals and ephemera.

Like many of its sister organisations, LAIC went through turbulent periods in its history. Shifting dynamics in feminist, lesbian and queer politics meant that the collection occasionally faced division, and even at times closure. The political landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s consistently put pressure on funding, and laws such as Section 28 caused precarity, uncertainty and turbulence for projects like LAIC. By 1995, funding the Archive became impossible and new premises were sought. Glasgow Women’s Library housed the collection as a donation; today, the Lesbian Archive comprises around one-third of GWL's entire archive, and LAIC's (uncatalogued) library collection is housed on the mezzanine level.

Established in 1991, the Lesbian Youth Support Information Service (LYSIS) provided support to young lesbians in four main ways: correspondence counselling; telephone counselling; peer support; and information. LYSIS was part of an umbrella organisation, the Lesbian Information Service (LIS), which provided indirect support for young lesbians including publishing, education and training, projects and campaigning.

Lesbians in Peer Support (LIPS) was a youth group organised by the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) supporting lesbian and bisexual women and girls between the ages of 14 and 25. The group was founded in 2000, following a1999 study into poverty and social exclusion among LGB young people in Glasgow and West Scotland which found that many young lesbian and bisexual women experienced high levels of isolation and social stigma. A youth group run by Lesbian Line had recently folded, leaving little support for young queer women in Glasgow. LIPS initially received three years of funding from Comic Relief, making it GWL’s first funded project. Sue John and Shona Bruce led the project, which was launched in October 2000 in the Tron theatre as part of the Glasgay! Arts Festival.

LIPS initially held meetings at GWL on Thursday evenings, shifting to Thursdays and Saturdays in 2001. The group also later launched an under 18s subgroup. This collection records many of the activities that took place during these meetings, including creative writing, drumming and drag workshops, as well as sessions on issues such as self-esteem, sexual health and domestic violence. Alongside regular meetings, the group organised residential trips in 2001, to Manchester – where they strengthened their links to a local lesbian and bisexual youth group – and to Camas on the Isle of Mull. The group also produced a series of short films, Dykes in the City which were launched at the 2001 Glasgay! Festival.
Staff and group members of LIPS were also involved in researching and campaigning around the needs of LGBTQ people in Scotland. In partnership with the Greater Glasgow Health Board, LIPS launched Something to Tell You: Hearing the Voices of Young LGB People in 2002, a report that gathered and analysed the experiences of young gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Glasgow and West Scotland.
In 2003, GWL secured additional funding from Comic Relief to run LIPS for a further three years. As part of the next phase of the project, members of the group trained as Peer Educators to facilitate LIPS groups and support new members. Following Comic Relief’s policy of funding projects for no more than six years, LIPS began to taper off its activities from 2005, and disbanded in the following year.

London Lesbian Line, the very first lesbian line in the world, was set up in 1977. It was run by lesbian feminists on a voluntary basis. On April 1 1987, the Women’s Referral Information Services took over all assets and liabilities of the Line and it continued its work as a contact point for lesbians to talk to others about their experiences in all aspects of their life, including relationships, parenting, physical and mental health, prejudice, abuse, ableism, and religion. None of the volunteers had official training beyond a training programme run by more experienced volunteers. Though not a counselling or befriending service, they were in contact with groups to which they could refer callers in need of professional advice. Records show the Line continued operating into at least the early 2000s.