Showing 186 results

Authority record
Lesbians in Peer Support
GB 1534 LIPS · Corporate body · 2000-2006

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.

GB 1534 LAIC · Corporate body · 1984-1996

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.

GB 1534 KM · Corporate body · 1980-present

Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) began in 1980 as the Barrow Action Group, to oppose the import of foreign fuel for reprocessing at Sellafield nuclear site. Since then, CORE has widened its campaign to challenge Sellafield’s radioactive sea and air discharges, and the resulting implications to the local environment. CORE is a non-political, non profit-making organisation.

GB 1534 KM · Corporate body · 1980-1982

The Peoples Planning Inquiry Commission (PPIC) was established to run alongside a Public Inquiry that was set up to consider UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) appeal against the Kyle & Carrick District Council's decision to refuse planning permission for test drilling around Mullwharchar. The PPIC believed the government lead Public Enquiry to be confined to certain interests.

GB 1534 KM · Corporate body · 1978[?]-present[?]

The Scottish Conservation Society (SCS) originally began as a regional (South West Scotland) branch of the UK Conservation Society (CS), but became an independent group under the name SCS when they found the CS unwilling to commit to a fully anti-nuclear stance. The SCS was initially created to campaign against the disposal of radioactive nuclear waste at Mullwharchar, South Ayrshire. In 1982 the campaign won, with plans by the nuclear industry being abandoned.

GB 1534 IC1 · Corporate body · 1981-2011

The 1981 Investment Club (1981-2011) was formed for the purpose of creating a group of women who, through shared knowledge and experience, would be able to learn how to invest their finances with minimal risk. Club membership was open to women who resided in the West of Scotland, and was restricted to 20 women at a time, all of whom would be involved in the management of the club. Shared holidays and annual meals also became tradition. In 2010, the current members near-unanimously agreed to end the club, deciding that the May 2011 AGM would mark its conclusion, and compiled these records for the GWL to ensure their past efforts would be remembered.

Glasgow Women's Library
GB 1534 GWL · Corporate body · 1991-

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.

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.

Despite the absence of revenue funding and a complete reliance on volunteers, GWL was quickly established as the central general information resource about and for women in Glasgow. People from all sections of the community donated books, magazines, journals and ephemera and by 1994 GWL’s rapid growth, both in terms of collection size and user numbers, resulted in the need to relocate to larger premises. Consequently, the organisation moved to Glasgow City Council-owned premises at 109 Trongate where it continued to expand and develop, providing learning opportunities informally in the context of the lack of any funding for this purpose.

The Library is a unique resource in Scotland but has always sought inspiration, support and links with sister organisations world-wide. Many of the Library projects, policies and initiatives have developed after peer group visits, contacts or discussions.

Over the Library’s history we have held hundreds of events, undertaken research, training and partnerships, visited and hosted workshops, conferences and exhibitions. We have visited international sister projects as well as making firm links with local and national women’s initiatives.
In 2000, GWL secured its first project funding, enabling the employment of workers for the first time. This was followed by further successful funding bids to facilitate new projects focusing on the provision of Lifelong Learning opportunities and an Adult Literacy and Numeracy Project aimed at women.

During a key period of development between 2002 and 2006, GWL secured its status as a Linked Library to the Scottish Parliament, appointed a Librarian and a Writer in Residence, undertook several research commissions on behalf of public bodies and launched its Women Make History Project. This period saw further growth in user numbers, with more than 10,000 people a year accessing the ever-expanding collection of materials and range of services.

In 2007, GWL was decanted from 109 Trongate to temporary accommodation at 81 Parnie Street (due to the development of 109 Trongate for visual arts organisations) pending a negotiated and agreed relocation to permanent self-contained premises at the Mitchell Library, for which the organisation worked towards a planned £1.5 million refurbishment. Whilst some archive materials and artefacts remained in storage at Parnie Street, project work continued and in April 2008, a new learning initiative aimed at Black and Minority Ethnic Women was launched. The new Women Make History Project researched, developed and delivered its first Women’s Heritage Walk and has since developed a further four.

In June 2008 GWL was successful in its bid for funding to the Heritage Lottery Fund and was awarded £410,000 to create a purpose-built archive space within the Mitchell Library premises and to employ an Archivist for three years to train volunteers in archive-related skills, conserve the collection and co-ordinate a programme of related public events. In addition, the Scottish Government agreed three years funding to develop GWL’s Lifelong Learning Programme at national level.

Like 109 Trongate, the temporary Parnie Street premises were also designated in 2010 as being required for visual arts project development, resulting in GWL having to move once again and take occupation of the Mitchell Library space in advance of planned renovation works. This move revealed, in fact, that the space could no longer meet GWL’s operational and strategic requirements in terms of size, functionality, vision and ambition. In the five years between the offer of these premises and the temporary move into them GWL’s growth had been significant, having increased its paid staff cohort three fold from four to 12 and doubling its number of core projects from four to eight. GWL worked with Glasgow Life to identify suitable new premises, and the former public library building in Landressy Street in Bridgeton was identified as an option for GWL by Glasgow Life as a result of the relocation of their public library service into the refurbished Olympia Building. With the support of Clyde Gateway the Library worked hard to raise money for the essential renovations needed to make Bridgeton Library fully fit for our purposes.

Having relocated to permanent premises at 23 Landressy Street in 2013, a major £1.4 million capital refurbishment project was completed in November 2015, when the Rt. Hon. Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland opened the new premises, publically declaring GWL as ‘truly a national treasure.’ This was followed in December by GWL being awarded the prestigious status of ‘Recognised Collection of National Significance’ by Museums Galleries Scotland and the Scottish Government, further cementing its status as the only Accredited Museum dedicated to women’s history in the whole of the UK.

Edinburgh Women's Centre
GB 1534 EWC · Corporate body · 1974 - 1984

Edinburgh Women's Centre was in operation from 1973 to 1984, providing information and services for women within the Lothian area.

GB 1534 EN1 · Corporate body · 1990-

Engender is Scotland’s feminist membership organisation, a charity working in Scotland and other parts of Europe for equality and women’s rights. Based in Edinburgh, their goals include increased public awareness of sexism and its detrimental effects, equal representation of women in government, and training women activists at a local level. The organisation launched in the early 1990s as a research and campaigning organisation. They involve themselves in all aspects of society, including care, education, employment, health, media, arts, sport, politics, public spaces, social security, abuse and women’s rights. They also run conferences and events, host women’s writing on their blog, and host a podcast: ‘On the Engender.’

GB 1534 EG1 · Corporate body · 1906-

Founded in 1906, the Embroiderer’s Guild is a voluntary charity that aims to collect and teach about embroidery in order to keep the practice alive in today’s declining art curriculum in schools. Originally started in London, other branches began opening across England until eventually the first Scottish Branch formed in Edinburgh (1953), and in 1956 the first Glasgow branch was opened. In addition to offering courses on embroidery, the Guild also has regular meetings for members to attend, as well as giving lectures and creating exhibitions. They also curate a collection of embroidery, consisting of pieces both historical and contemporary from the 16th century onwards, which is currently held at the Bucks County Museum Resource Centre. The Glasgow and District Branch had a 50th anniversary celebration exhibition in 2006, and a 60th anniversary exhibition in 2016.