Last week, the Library had a visit from Debi Withers, one of the women behind the Women’s Liberation Music Archive. Glasgow Women’s Library were delighted to welcome Debi as she consulted material from our archive. The Music and Liberation exhibition, containing material from the Women’s Liberation Music Archive, will be touring the United Kingdom later in the year. The exhibition aims to ‘show how feminists used music as an activist tool to entertain and empower women during the 1970s and 1980s. It brings together for the first time a diverse collection of women’s cultural heritage to inspire and inform contemporary audiences about the politics of music making.’

Debi, right, and Natalie using GWL's journal collection.

The Women’s Liberation Music exhibition will be stopping at Cardiff, London and Manchester. Glasgow Women’s Library is delighted to host the exhibition when it makes its Scottish stop in October. Keep an eye on our website for future updates!

For more information about the Women’s Liberation Music Archive, please visit their website here.

For 6 weeks, the Coatbridge women visited the school every Tuesday morning. St Andrews students gave the ladies a tour of the school and told them about the work the XL group had been doing, including creating an animated film and raising funds for charity. Over the next few weeks the students and teachers introduced the women to iPads, smartboards, e-mail, Facebook and mobile phone texting. The XL group also arranged a trip for everyone to the pantomime at Christmas, which was great fun.

XL group and the Lanarkshire Inquisitors at Kirkshaws community centre

In the New Year, the women invited St Andrews staff and students down to Kirkshaws Community Centre and gave a presentation about some great women from North Lanarkshire’s past, including Coatbridge poetess Joanna Ballie, labour MP Jean Mann and the artist Jessie McGeehan.

Everyone involved in the project learned a lot from one another. The group said about their experience:

“I enjoyed very much being back at school..the students and teachers were very helpful and showed us that modern technology has a lot to offer – I’ve now bought an iPad and am enjoying experimenting with it!”

“The project with the XL group was an eye opener into what they can do and what we as older ladies can learn from them.”

Portrait of Helen Denny

Mavis researched local woman Helen Denny.

To read about Helen Denny, download the file below

Download: Helen Denny

Sketch of Katherine Drain

Mary researched local poet Katherine Drain

To read about Katherne Drain, download the file below

Download: Renton Poet Katherine Drain

Photograph of Lady Overtoun

Margaret researched Lady Overtoun

To read about Lady Overtoun, download the file below

Download: Lady Overtoun

Perhaps you know of another woman the group could research or would like to find out about another aspect of women’s history in Dumbarton? The course runs on Friday mornings, 10am-12noon at Dumbarton Library (9th March – 11May 2012), is free of charge and is open to women resident in West Dunbartonshire. If you would like to come along, get in touch for more information.

Exclusive new works by Anne Donovan, Margaret Elphinstone, Karen Campbell and Donna Moore; new fine art print works by artists Claire Barclay and Ashley Cook, as well as a performance by Ellie Harrison at the first twentieth anniversary celebration in 2012.

We’re pleased to announce that the Mapping Memorials to Women Scotland project has received a message of support from First Minister Alex Salmond. The project, developed by Glasgow Women’s Library and Women’s History Scotland, aims to record memorials to women across Scotland at womenofscotland.org.uk.

First Minister Alex Salmond said:

“Throughout the centuries, Scots have paid tribute to the remarkable achievements of women in both small and grand ways. From plaques and cairns to statues and buildings, all commemorate the contribution that women have made to Scottish life, from the most humble to the most generous. It is a rich and fascinating story. This project is a very fitting one to be launched at the time of International Women’s Day and I would urge all those interested in the achievements of Scottish women both at home and abroad to help with some detective work and build the Women of Scotland website into a very useful database and resource we are all proud of.”

The site already contains over 75 records but the aim is to build on this base to create a comprehensive national database.

This memorial stone dedicated to the folk heroine Lilias of Ancrum is just one of many already recorded on the Women of Scotland site.

From Shetland to the Borders, the Western Isles to Fife, women have made a huge contribution to national life in all fields and many are commemorated in various ways in towns and cities and in small communities. A number are featured in The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press, 2005).

Examples found so far range from plaques and cairns to statues, streets, named buildings and stained glass windows. All commemorate the contribution that women have made to Scottish life. It is a rich and fascinating story.

Over the past year Girlguiding Scotland has helped to seek out memorials to add to the site, but now more help is needed. The website is relaunching on 10th March, and we are calling on people across Scotland to go out and find memorials in their local area, and record them on the Women of Scotland website.

Visit womenofscotland.org.uk for more information about how to get involved.

You can also follow the project on Facebook and Twitter, or share your images of memorials with our Flickr group.

We apologise to all of you who couldn’t wait to start researching your local women this Friday and we hope to see you in a couple of weeks even more eager!

Have lesbians been expunged from history by academics and biographers who wish to deny their existence?  The authors of Not a passing phase certainly believe so.  Written in 1989 by the Lesbian History Group, this lively and contentious collection of essays attempt to redress this imbalance.    As Sheila Jeffreys writes in her introduction, there are numerous reasons why writing lesbian history is so difficult.  ‘Lesbians do not usually leave records of their lives…even where the documents exist, their suppression may begin immediately after the author’s death.’

Re-examining the passionate friendships of writers such as Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Edith Simcox, Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby; uncovering invisible networks between women; and exploring the fate of lesbians within the professions; they offer new insights into a range of literary and historical movements, and present a political approach to historical research.   The feeling you’re left with after reading this book is that it’s miraculous that lesbian women’s voices have survived all these attempts throughout history to repress them.  And sadly this repression is by no means a thing of the past.  Because of this, we should all make sure we take the time to listen to what they have to tell us.

Why not check out some other books that might be of interest during LGBT history month?

The trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami

The lesbian menace: ideology, identity and the representation of lesbian life by Sherrie A. Inness

Changing our lives: lesbian passions, politics, priorities by Veronica Groocock

Passions between women: British lesbian culture 1668-1801 by Emma Donoghue

Odd girls and twilight lovers: a history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America by Lilian Faderman

This issue includes a range of activities across Scotland for International Women’s Day and more Twentieth Anniversary news.

You can download the full programme of events here: What’s On at Glasgow Women’s Library – February to May 2012

You can also pick up a copy of the programme from the library, just pop in and see us Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 4.30pm.  Alternatively you should be able to find a copy in your local Glasgow City Council Library. Let us know if they have run out and we can send them more.

All programme details will be available on our website in the events calendar and printed copies will be distributed around Glasgow. Pop into your local Glasgow City Council Library to pick up your copy (let us know if they have run out as we can send more!) or come in and see us to find out more.

You can keep up to date with all our news and events by joining the library and signing up to the mailing list.  It’s free and we send out monthly emails keeping you informed on the Library related news.

If you have a suggestion on a location or website where you think we should be promoting what’s on at the Library then contact us.