Hi! My name is Maisie and I’m a currently completing my Master’s in Gender Studies at the University of Stirling. As part of my second semester, I chose to undertake a three-month placement at the Glasgow Women’s Library. During this placement I helped to develop a research guide for the LGBTQ+ collection, which will hopefully be useful for researchers (and others!) visiting GWL.
As someone who enjoys the supposedly tedious job of researching and organising research – I wouldn’t be doing a master’s if I didn’t – sifting through the LGBTQ+ collection in the GWL archive was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I spent countless hours sat on the balcony reading and researching about various items in the LGBTQ+ collection to develop the research guide. This placement has expanded my knowledge of both LGBTQ+ history in Scotland (and further afield) and archival skills. Originally, I thought that archival work would be numerous hours of spreadsheet making etc., and whilst this is a small part of archival work, the majority of my time was spent delving deeper into topics I found most interesting such as the Lesbian Avengers or the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group.
Overall, my experience at Glasgow Women’s Library was one of warmth and education, where every person I interacted with was so friendly and incredibly knowledgeable. I would recommend visiting the library, if nothing else for a cup of tea, a slice of cake, and a good book!
