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Strength of the collections
Chronological focus
Geographic and language focus
Purchase of material
Unsolicited donations of material
Our audiences
Current collecting
Collecting priorities
Acquisition, access and disposal
Collaboration and partnership
Ownership of the collection
The Women's Library is the most comprehensive women's history collection in the UK. The Library is a national research resource which exists to preserve, document and explore women's lives in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) in the past, present and future, to inspire learning and debate through the collections and related programmes, and to act as an international resource for women's history research.
Strength of the collections
The Library was established in 1926 to support the work of the London Society for Women's Service. The collections developed from the suffrage movement and have continued to retain a central focus on women's efforts to organise and campaign to improve and enrich women's lives. The collections cover a variety of topics, including women's rights, suffrage, sexuality, health, education, employment, the family and the home. They are a rich resource for researchers, from the social historian to the biographer and beyond. Emphasis is primarily on women living in Britain, but some international material is available, particularly for the Commonwealth.
The Library contains over 60,000 books and pamphlets, 3,000 periodical titles, printed ephemera and press cuttings, over 450 personal and organisational archives and a museum collection of 5,000 objects including posters, photographs, banners and badges. A history of the Library and further details of the range and depth of the printed, archive and museum collections can be found on our website.
Chronological focus
The Library's collections focus on the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We do not aim to collect primary source material before 1800, seeking instead to co-operate with other collections concentrating on earlier periods, as identified through our collections mapping resource GENESIS. The printed collections are more wide-ranging in their chronological focus, providing a broader context to the collections overall.
Geographic and language focus
The Library seeks to document the interests and roles of women in the UK in all their diversity, but recognises that women's lives also have an international context. Material with an international, regional or local focus is collected selectively across the collections but with the printed collections providing the wider geographical context. In this area we aim to collect with due regard to other institutions that actively acquire international materials and seek to work co-operatively with regional and local repositories.
The collection is mainly, but not exclusively, in English. Over 20 different languages are currently represented in the collections. Future collecting to support our widening participation programme will have a stronger focus upon community languages.
Purchase of material
The Library has an annual budget for the purchase of research level monographs, research reports, journal subscriptions and a selection of popular titles and published biographies of women. The Library aims to minimise duplication of new stock with other London Metropolitan University collections. Up to 10% of our annual acquisition budget is used to buy second hand material to fill gaps in the collection.
Additional material is usually acquired through fund raising.
Unsolicited donations of material
The Library relies heavily on donations to the collection. We accept material within the scope of our collection development policy and do not take duplicate copies. Unfortunately we cannot accept donations except by prior arrangement. Further details of our donations procedure can be found on our website.
Our audiences
The Women's Library is open to everyone. Our Audience Development Plan seeks to increase use of the collections by members of the local community, adult learners, students in statutory education, and at postgraduate and undergraduate level, and to support scholars and researchers. We consider the potential for research, course support and our widening participation programme when selecting new items for the collection and we seek to acquire the widest possible range of material to engage and inspire all of our audiences.
Current collecting
The Library is actively engaged in building upon its existing collection strengths and recording the development of feminism into the 21st century. Within the printed collections we will continue to acquire current research in the form of books, journals and reports. The output of women's organisations will be documented, where possible, through archiving of their websites. We will collect biographical, but not general, press cuttings, as well as a range of popular material to illuminate women's lives. The archive collection will retain a focus upon collecting the records of campaigning women's organisations and the personal papers of women activists. The museum's collections will primarily be led by audience development and exhibition needs. The museum and archive collections collaborate on collecting oral testimony, material objects and research projects that are relevant to our collections. Further information about our current collecting can be found in our selection guidelines.
Collecting priorities
The Library has identified two collecting priorities for active collecting in the next five-year period: second wave feminism and young women's experience in the early 21st century. Collecting in these areas will be within methodology defined by specific research projects, in collaboration with academic and community partners, and will be across all three domains. In particular, we will seek to work with organisations and individuals that reflect the diversity of individuals and organisations campaigning in the UK in the 20th and 21st centuries which may not adequately be reflected in our collections to date.
Acquisition, access and disposal
The Library requires legal ownership of all acquisitions transferred to the Library and will not acquire any item unless it is satisfied regarding its ownership status. A formal deposit agreement is required for archival, museum and large collections of published material. Long-term loan of archival collections may be considered only under exceptional circumstances.
Material will not be acquired where adequate storage, preservation, cataloguing and access cannot be achieved within the framework of the Library's existing or predicted resources. For audio-visual and electronic resources, we seek to collect in standard formats which we can support and preserve long term and refer material to other collections and repositories where appropriate. New acquisitions are entered on the Library's catalogues. A guide to the Library's cataloguing priorities is available on our website.
The Women's Library does not generally weed or otherwise dispose of material in the collection once catalogued. Any disposal of material is undertaken in accordance with the Library's disposal policy and in reference to the appropriate professional guidelines for the sector. The disposal policy is informed by the Collection Development Policy and external experts approval will also be sought when considering disposals.
Collaboration and partnership
The Women's Library is aware of the strength of collections on women in other archives, libraries and museums across the UK. We take external holdings into account when considering new acquisitions and refer material to other collections and repositories when appropriate. We will continue to work closely with national, regional and subject specialist institutions as well as sector advisors such as The National Archives (TNA), Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) or Museum Libraries Archives Council (MLA) to ensure that material is deposited in the most appropriate institution. We will seek to collaborate with national initiatives to develop the collection and preservation of material created in electronic formats.
We lead on mapping women's history collections in the British Isles via the GENESIS database and contribute to a range of union catalogues and archive and museum hubs. We will continue to support and co-operate with other feminist collections within the UK regarding donation and disposals. We will seek to strengthen the network of women's information centres in Europe and build links with like institutions worldwide.
Ownership of the collection
The Women's Library asserts title in all its collections where appropriate. The Collections are held in trust by the University and the trustees are the Governors of London Metropolitan University. The Women's Library Council advises trustees and management on strategic development and standards of collections care. Minutes of the Council meetings are sent to the Academic Board of the University and an Annual Report is submitted to the Board of Governors.
This Collection Development Policy was written with reference to the MLA's Museum Accreditation Scheme Model Acquisition and Disposal Policy and TNA's Archive Collection Policy Statements Checklist of Suggested Contents.
This policy was to be formally approved by The Women's Library Council in October 2006 and will be reviewed in 2011.
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