As an archive collection volunteer, over the course of several months I worked on arranging and listing GWL’s own audiovisual collection – in other words, the recorded materials created or collected by GWL in the course of its work – to enable its permanent preservation through digitisation. Some materials were gathered and kept for documenting and learning purposes and for making available to borrowers as part of a library lending collection. Others were developed to record and promote the library’s activities, events and projects, or created by staff, participants and volunteers in the course of running and participating in projects. Twenty-seven boxes now contain this breadth of material, digitising work on which is part of a recently concluded project to interpret, safeguard and share GWL’s own 30-year heritage.
Evidently, a lot of this material is an important audiovisual record of what GWL has been doing over the decades, and the broader environment in which it has been creating, and working with its members. Since digital materials on formats such as VHS and MiniDV are particularly vulnerable to degradation – or are simply difficult to view because we no longer readily have access to the hardware to view them on – I helped archivist Mae to sort and list the collection to be digitised. Digitising helps both to protect the originals from future degradation through viewing and as they are stored, and enables the content to be more accessible to archive users.
So what exactly is in those twenty-seven boxes? Basically, a lot: the earliest material comes from the mid-80s and runs all the way through to the mid-2010s, comprising all kinds of content recorded on many different formats.
The collection includes 80s and 90s commercial films, with a collection of queer cinema, as well as recordings from TV of programmes and reports on issues and legislative developments affecting women and their lives, for instance around sexual harassment in the workplace and domestic violence. All of this formed part of a maintained VHS lending library, and the original library borrowing stamps offer an insight into the types of materials being accessed at a time before the much readier access to news and information we enjoy now.
Camcorder footage of events filmed by GWL staff, such as the launch of Glasgow City Council’s Lesbian and Gay Initiative or the Reclaim the Night/Save Maryhill Women’s Centre demonstration, show GWL’s engagement in local activism.
There are also DVDs produced by other activist groups, for instance Glasgow community-based film-making collective Camcorder Guerillas, encouraging resistance to the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles through non-violent direct action.
Throughout the whole collection runs a thread of GWL documenting its own activities. Sometimes this is explicitly promotional, as with a 1994 video which narrates GWL’s history and outlines the services on offer to members from its then-premises at 109 Trongate. It’s an interesting exercise in comparison to consider its advice on how to access and navigate the books, journals, cuttings, archive holdings; the details on its newsletter (provided on audio cassette tape) and merchandise; and the services then provided, including research consultancy, meeting space and legal services, with what GWL offers today and in what respects that has changed or remains the same.
An important part of the collection is several boxes of original tapes from the project ‘Documenting 109’ by filmmaker Jan Nimmo and photographer Rachel Thibbotumunwe. They were commissioned to create documentary records and portraits of library users and trained staff, volunteers and learners to use film and photography to make their own records.
Footage from talks and training sessions held by GWL on topics such as displacement of women, how to get involved in political engagement, and classification and cataloguing at the library, also gives a really immediate glimpse into the types of activities taking place across its three decades. Recordings of launches of projects including Penny Pinch, She Settles in the Shields and 104 Pairs of Shoes, visits to the self-building project Take Root, and preparatory research work for the creation of the Women Make History walking tours, showcase the invention and variety of work happening at GWL.
Sorting through this collection has been quite a tactile experience: some of the earliest tapes were coated with a thick layer of dust, and I’ve been reactivating old muscle memory in clicking and clacking open and closed what now seem like big, unwieldy plastic VHS storage cases, or slipping tapes in and out of paper sleeves. Add to that the challenges of navigating through untitled VHS and MiniDV tapes to get a handle on their content without the luxury of digital timestamps, and the necessity of consulting YouTube tutorials to figure out how to load and unload a camcorder tape, and it’s also been a physically interesting collection to work with.
Working with the audiovisual collection has been a unique way of learning about GWL’s hugely varied and vibrant history. Past projects or events I’d only previously been vaguely aware of have really come to life, and it’s exciting to think about users who are interested in GWL’s history and collections being able to more readily access this material.
