Our Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 Bid Dossier

Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 Finalist

Glasgow Women’s Library: Museum of the Year 2018 Bid Dossier

Glasgow Women’s Library applied to become Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 (MoTY). It was a Finalist alongside Brooklands Museum, Weybridge; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; The Postal Museum, London; and Tate St Ives.

The winner, announced at a ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was Tate St Ives.

As the first equalities focussed Accredited Museum to have been a Finalist for this, the most prestigious accolade for Museums, we are keen to see other groups who work with social justice at their core to apply for this Award. We want to make transparent the records of our work throughout our own application and bid process.

We are sharing the following dossier for those interested in our work or in the sector in general, and / or are researching museums (and equalities); and specifically make available what we were presenting as our claim to be considered as Museum of the Year in 2018.

Application for Museum of the Year 2018
Press, Marketing and Public Engagement
The Judges Visit
The Students Visit
Volunteer involvement
Statistics and demographics
Acceptance speech

Application for Museum of the Year 2018

The following is a summary that includes our response to the key questions (the format may have been adjusted for this website; the images were included in a separate section of the application).

Are any of the collections designated/recognised? (100 words or fewer)

The Entire Collection of Glasgow Women’s Library is a Recognised Collection of National Significance (Recognised as Nationally Significant to Scotland by The Scottish Government and Museums Galleries Scotland). This includes both the Museum and Archive collections.

Completion of GWL exterior refurbishment (facade) 2017
Completion of GWL exterior refurbishment (facade) 2017

How do you approach access, diversity and inclusion? Please give details on your access, diversity and inclusion policy and how this is put into place onsite and through your programme. (250 words or fewer)

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) are intrinsic, authentically embraced and expressed values throughout every aspect of GWL. Having EDI at the heart of our work has made GWL a unique organisation and made our museum relevant to the widest communities including those that are traditionally ‘easy to ignore’. EDI forms the basis of our key framework documents: the Strategic Plan (currently being updated for 2018-2021), Business Plan and Learning Policy, distilled here.

Each new member of our team: staff, Board or volunteer participates in ‘This is Who We Are’ group training where Core Values are discussed and shared in relation to GWL’s EDI aims, with the result that our staff cohort of 22, our Board and our volunteers feel confident, ‘aligned’ and aware of the critical importance of inclusion, and are able to represent GWL’s EDI aims. EDI is continually developed across the organisation in day-to-day and strategic work resulting in award-winning initiatives and, in 2017, the development of a new Project, Equality in Progress: bespoke, transformational training where the ‘special ingredients’ of GWL’s EDI work are delivered to cultural organisations, from Museums Galleries Scotland to Edinburgh International Book Festival. Our commitment to EDI as a guiding principle has created an outstandingly accessible, well-used and welcoming environment. GWL recognises that our Key Aims can only be fully achieved if EDI drives our governance, collections, recruitment and programming. Our EDI Action Plan, promoted as a model of best practice by Creative Scotland can be found on our website.

'Women Making an Exhibition of Themselves' (GWL Community Curators project) 2017
‘Women Making an Exhibition of Themselves’ (GWL Community Curators project) 2017

Opening hours and admission charges. Please provide information on your opening days and hours and admission charges, including charges for temporary exhibitions and any concessions available.

GWL is free to access and use, and all exhibitions (permanent and temporary) and the majority of public events are free. Use of the lending library is free with no fines for overdue books. We reimburse travel costs for volunteers and learners accessing our literacy provision. Where we do charge for events we have two rates: Full (for people who feel that they can afford to pay) and Subsidised (usually free) for students, people on a low income, unemployed people or people in receipt of benefits. People can self-identify in order to access events for free. (We do not ask for proof). In 2017 we successfully launched our ‘Pay it Forward’ scheme that has enabled us to invite more groups and people on low incomes to attend for free any events with a charge, such as our inaugural day long ‘Open the Door’ women’s writing festival. Friends of GWL can access any events with a charge at a subsidised rate. GWL is open: Monday-Friday 9.30-5pm, Thursdays 9.30-7.30pm Saturdays 12-4pm. We open late or longer on Saturdays for specific programmed events.

Status of organisation

Number of full time staff: 10
Number of part time staff: 13
Number of volunteers: 100
Founding year: 1991
Visitor numbers: 20,000 approximately annually

'In Her Shoes' (GWL Addressing Hate Crime community project) Performance at City of Glasgow College, 2017
‘In Her Shoes’ (GWL Addressing Hate Crime community project) Performance at City of Glasgow College,
2017

Budget/annual turnover (250 words or fewer.)

2016-17: Income – £629,111; Expenditure £608,324. Of this, £24,644 was income relating to capital refurbishment grants.

Have you received any recent major grants? Has the organisation received significant grants (£100,000+) towards acquisitions or projects in the past two years?

Yes

If yes, please provide details. Who gave the grant, when, and what amount? (250 words or fewer).

Glasgow City Council, 2016-17 and 2017-18 (and several years previously) £161,410 per year for learning projects – also approved for 2018-19;
Creative Scotland, 2016-17 and 2017-18 (and also years from 2015 onwards), £101,243 per year as a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) towards revenue costs and delivery of cross arts programming. This annual funding has been increased to £119,989 per year from 2018-21;
Over the past two financial years, GWL has received capital funding towards refurbishment of our 1906 Grade B Listed Carnegie Library Building of £421,853 from: The Heritage Lottery Fund (part of a total grant of £410,000 covering capital and project funding over a period of previous years); The Scottish Government; Glasgow City Heritage Trust / Historic Environment Scotland (GCHT / HES); Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company (CGURC); The Robertson Trust. Of this, the largest single grants over the past two financial years were from GCHT/HES of £184,150 and CGURG of £109,550.

Key funding sources (breakdown by £ and %) *
Glasgow City Council £163,960 (26%)
Scottish Government £120,297 (19%)
Creative Scotland £100,150 (16%)
Museums Galleries Scotland £73,186 (12%)
Heritage Lottery Fund £51,389 (8%)
Foundation Scotland £9,407 (1.5%)
University of Glasgow £9,216 (1.5%)
Other small grants £23,426 (4%)
Donations £10,406 (1.5%)
‘Friends’ of GWL £9,581 (1.5%)
Income Generation and Merchandise £44,127 (7%)
Fundraising £13,966 (2%)

Description of institution. Please provide a short description (100 words or fewer) of your museum or gallery.

Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) is the UK’s sole Accredited Museum dedicated to women’s history and a Recognised Collection of National Significance. A change maker in the Library, Archives and Museum sectors, it delivers groundbreaking work on equalities and public engagement linked to its inspiring collections. It is multi award-winning, grown from the grass roots, and impacting on its neighbourhood whilst attracting partnerships and visitors from around the world. Involving creatives since launching in 1991, GWL commands recognition and respect for the quality of its environment and its innovative participatory programmes. GWL is now an exemplar of an enterprising museum resource.

Weekly GWL Story Cafe session, 2017
Weekly GWL Story Cafe session, 2017

Application summary: Please provide a short statement (100 words or fewer) on why last year was an exceptional year for your institution, and what makes it Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018.

Glasgow Women’s Library is an Accredited Museum and a Recognised Collection of National Significance. It is a dynamic change maker across the Library, Archive and Museum sectors, undertaking path finding work in access, equalities and public engagement linked to its inspiring collections. In 2017 it expanded its international connections, doubled its audiences, completed extensive renovation works, trained Community Curators to create its permanent displays, contributed to an international programme to grow a unique community collecting strategy, and developed and delivered ground breaking transformational programmes of training for the national Museum and wide cultural sector drawing on its pioneering work on Inclusion.

Application statement: Please summarise, in up to 1,000 words, why your museum should be considered for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018.

Following the watershed successes of its 25th anniversary programme in 2016, 2017 saw GWL’s profile soar, its impact expand, and heightened recognition across the UK and beyond marking its significance as a unique phenomenon with a singular voice in the museums sector. 2017 was the year that gave rise to #metoo, the surge of activity ahead of the Centenary of the Representation of the People’s Act, intensified debates on equality globally, and the unprecedented public, media and press interest in (the records of) activism around women and ‘intersectional’ feminism. GWL’s purpose, values, innovative governance, programming and collections can been seen in this context as coming into its own, vividly modeling a museum of acute relevance.

GWL delivered over 160 public events and a range of projects in 2017 that created meaningful links between our unique and rare collections, delivered by GWL’s 23 specialised staff and 100 passionate volunteers, across its welcoming multi-award-winning building and in outreach locations (including prisons and academic institutions) across Scotland.

Choreographer Janice Parker facilitates workshop at her '1973: Archiving the Live' exhibition at GWL 2017
Choreographer Janice Parker facilitates workshop at her ‘1973: Archiving the Live’ exhibition at GWL 2017

2017’s outcomes typify the hybridity of GWL’s increasingly ambitious, thought provoking high quality collaborations. In a new commission with BookWorks London, GWL hosted a residency by fast rising talent Sophie Collins, resulting in the lauded book Small White Monkeys, a work that mined GWL’s collection to create a searingly frank and startlingly original work on shame and surviving sexual abuse. In the same year our team secured European Social Fund support to conduct the first research of its kind into the health of Equalities work in Museums across Scotland. GWL garnered high praise from visitors, donors and supporters in 2017, from Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid to the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and attracted a record number of international visitors. GWL has, throughout its history, worked with (and has representatives across its staff, volunteers and Board) the ‘hard to reach’ or, as we prefer to say, the ‘easy to ignore’. With a progressive effective feminist approach, its evolution from a grass roots project into a celebrated model of a user led museum has become at this stage in its development a newsworthy example of best practice in the sector. This rare and improbably successful resource is genuinely owned by its many thousands of visitors, donors and supporters. It defies categorisation, having no ‘typical’ user; beloved, accessed and supported by literary lions and celebrity champions, researchers and academics of all stripes but cherished as fervently by Glasgow’s ‘EastEnders’, Literacy learners and women who access our daily ESOL classes. GWL productively fuses the local and global, and has become a haven for creatives, researchers and people for whom this is their first ever museum visit.

2017 became the year when this path finding organisation came of age. It began its first commissioning of high profile international art stars, bringing women creatives of world renown to connect with our collections and hugely diverse audiences in our multi-award-winning building

We are located in the heart of (and hugely impacting on) Glasgow’s regenerating East End neighbourhood (in the top 5% most deprived areas of Scotland). In 2017 GWL completed the latest stage of restoration of our Grade B Listed premises, involving whole scale restoration of its façade, gable and roof. In a typically innovative, bravura step GWL commissioned the internationally renowned artist Linder Sterling to inaugurate a new Flag and Film project that will complete the public facing works, and will launch the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts (GI) in 2018. Linder has developed work that mines the contrasting collections of GWL and Chatsworth House. This ambition and enterprise typifies GWL’s approach, frequently bringing artists’ agency to vivify collections engagement, grounded in a whole organisation commitment to inclusion. This inaugural flag work (which will be unfurled in a context where flags are freighted with associations of Sectarianism) will be the first in an ongoing series of commissions from international creatives animating a formally blighted locale with the positivity that has come to characterise GWL. 2017 also saw GWL commission its first international solo show (Auckland based artist Fiona Jack) whilst in May, GWL staged its first national festival of women writers.

'Sisterhood is Powerful' exhibition, (curated from GWL poster collection) 2017
‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ exhibition, (curated from GWL poster collection) 2017

This past year has seen GWL consolidate its role as a beacon in other respects, not least in museums engagement; In 2017 GWL’s Equality in Progress project, designed to effect transformational change in museums and in the wider cultural terrain, began to radically impact on the sector. GWL delivered training that distils its specialised knowledge of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion to both individual cultural organisations (from Edinburgh International Book Festival to Scottish PEN) and to the Board of Museums Galleries Scotland.

It created dynamic partnerships with international sister organisations and has featured prominently at international conferences and in key reports and research on equality throughout 2017.

In 2017 GWL launched Women Making an Exhibition of Themselves, its Community Curators programme that tasked a group of diverse local women to work with GWL’s Museum Curator to create GWL’s first permanent collection displays. GWL also initiated a ground breaking Community Collecting group, an outcome of GWL’s involvement in Curatorial Leadership in Collecting group (in collaboration with The Hepworth, cultural partners in Sheffield, Manchester, Salford and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven). This year, we have transformed the digital presence of our collection and increased unique website page views by 37% from 2016.

2017 saw GWL’s entrepreneurial flair (that won them Enterprising Museum of the Year in 2015) develop a raft of new exciting collaborations with six UK designers and craftspeople including Donna Wilson and Jasleen Kaur who have derived inspiration from GWL’s unique collections to set a benchmark for developing museum merchandise. (Currently being soft launched at Cubitt Gallery London and subsequently at GWL with a series of participatory programming in 2018). From its ‘Collect:if’ group, fostering ownership of the museum by Women of Colour creatives, to its cross cutting methods of governance that have created pathways for young women to be pipelined onto its Board, GWL’s work in 2017 is illustrative of a model museum making news for all the right reasons.

GWL submitted the following film as part of the application.

Glasgow Women’s Library – Museum of the Year 2018 Application Video on Vimeo.

Press, Marketing and Public engagement

Throughout the bid process GWL created press releases, met and were interviewed by many journalists and undertook a significant public engagement campaign. All elements were required of the Finalists under the Terms and Conditions of application:

GWL shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018
Flying the Flag for GWL

These included drafts of Press Releases for if GWL was a runner up or winner of the Museum of the Year 2018:
Glasgow Women’s Library runner-up in Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018
GWL Wins Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018

In the Editorial of the September 2018 edition of its journal, the Museums Association publicly stated: ‘The decision to overlook an institution as ambitious and innovative as Glasgow Women’s Library should prompt the Art Fund to think again about the purpose, aims and structure of the prize’. Editorial, Simon Stephens, Museums Journal, Issue 118/09

#MyMuseum

Our public engagement campaign was entitled #MyMuseum (and we also used the official Art Fund #MuseumOfTheYear hashtag) and involved us capturing testimonies from a wide range of our communities, donors and supporters and sharing them online as short films. Each contributor spoke about why GWL was their museum.

Contributor’s statements were posted each day of the campaign starting with Lubaina Himid, the current Turner Prize Winner, and concluding with Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister. The films, which were also projected throughout the bid period in our foyer, comprised volunteers, visitors, supporters, donors, artists, arts practitioners, partner organisation representatives, local residents and attendees at GWL public events and exhibitions, detailing the array of reasons why GWL was meaningful to them. We wanted to emphasise the huge diversity in our user base and illustrate the programming and resources that we were impacting in our locale and with visitors and users with very wide backgrounds in profound ways. Our aim was also to demonstrate that there is no typical GWL user and that all are welcome.

A selection of the #MyMuseum videos have been compiled here:

#MyMuseum Films on Vimeo.

Flying the Flag for GWL

An additional strand of the public engagement campaign involved us commissioning a new flag to be designed by our Designer in Residence, Jyni Ong. The new flag was installed on the flagpole on the facade of GWL and a second flag was the focus of a press and publicity campaign that saw it travel from Orkney to Haworth via Cromarty and Edinburgh.

https://twitter.com/LalJaneMiller/status/1012285797192683520

A spontaneous campaign was also developed by a Library supporter who requested a version of the flag for their twitter banner header. This was adopted by over 60 Twitter followers.

Support for GWL came from many quarters, expressed with the #MyMuseum hashtag throughout our public engagement campaign.

We used adapted Art Fund feedback forms to capture people’s responses to GWL specifically in response to the Statement ‘I just wanted to let you know’. We captured over 50 and they included the following – click on the images to read them.

I just wanted to let you know… I’m so grateful having support from Glasgow Women’s Library. I can understand better the history of Suffragette with my tutor’s help. Love the archive, I can see items and books in the past. And Story Cafe is the best way to spend Thursday’s time.I just wanted to let you know… You are compassionate, challenging + creative, inclusive, incomparable + intelligent, loving, loveable and liberating, welcoming, wonderful and woman – centred, surprising, superb and… You bring sunshine to many lives. [A line art drawing of a smiling sun.] Thanks, Beverly.I just wanted to let you know… I feel seen, heard and held by GWL. When I first moved to Scotland a few years ago, GWL was the first place I felt safe and at home. It is also the place in Scotland that I frequent most often that is not my workplace or home. I know this is the experience of many other GWL visitors, volunteers and staff, and this is why GWL should win Museum of the Year 2018.I just wanted to let you know… This is a great place to go and read book. Its really quiet and peacely. You should come here. The people are really nice here. And there somewhere to drink if you thirsty. [A line art drawing of a face with tall narrow eyes which is blushing, smiling, and has a tongue sticking out. The face has a speech bubble next to it on the right side near the eye saying Yay.] By Hanna age 8.
I just wanted to let you know… I feel excited and I feel grateful to Glasgow women’s library. To be able to read and practise and building confidence with reading and writing, to not be ashamed of it or feel embarrassed. GWL welcomed me with their open arms to help me move one and improve my skills.
I just wanted to let you know… I feel so whole – there’s no other way to describe it. Everyone was so welcoming, kind, gentle yet strong in all the stories they told. I teared up at some points, and feel wonderfully inspired to grow as a person, as a woman. [There is a drawing of a heart and the symbol for female at the end.]
I just wanted to let you know… Glasgow Women’s library is a life saver. It has been the library I never knew I needed. The people have been fantastically kind, providing endless tea and a kind ear. The events have been universally fantastic, and inclusive providing insights into things I never knew I needed to know.
I just wanted to let you know… that GWL is a… Positive, warm, open, honourable, wonderful, trailblazing, friendly, diverse, amazing, noteworthy, empowering, mindful, loving, overall great institution. [There is a border around the words that is pink. There are two pink roses that have been drawn in the bottom corners.]
I just wanted to let you know… that the library is relaxing when you come. I am able to concentrate when I come to GWL, to relax and read. It’s good to get away from the house and not think about anything except my learning.
I just wanted to let you know… Glasgow’s Women’s Library is one of the most welcoming and warmest environments I have ever experienced. It is so much more that a library, but a safe space and community. I was immediately drawn in the first time I came here.
I just wanted to let you know… Glasgow Women’s Library is a very unique and special place, which is incredibly important to the city of Glasgow and Scotland in general. I have always felt very welcomed and at home here, and I think the events they put on and the work they do is all amazing.

Press Coverage

The press coverage we generated included:

Glasgow Live, 01/05/2018: Glasgow Women’s Library shortlisted for £100K museum prize

The Guardian, 01/05/2018: A secret mail train or old masters in Hull – who will win museum of the year?

The Herald, 02/05/2018: Glasgow Women’s Library in running for £100,000 national museum award

Evening Times, 07/05/2018: Glasgow library founded by SWOTY winner is up for award

The Herald, 09/05/2018: Judges full of praise for Glasgow Women’s Library as they fact find for £100,000 award

The Herald, 20/06/2018: ARTS NEWS: RSNO chief moves to Seattle, new flag for Glasgow Women’s Library

The Art Newspaper, 29/06/2018: Glasgow Women’s Library: a museum for the #MeToo era

The Times, 30/06/2018: ‘Women’s library? It’s not the right name’

The List, 02/07/2018: Glasgow Women’s Library for Museum of the Year

BBC Radio 4 Front Row, 04/07/2018: Emily Mortimer, Man Booker Prize at 50, Glasgow Women’s Library

The Independent, 09/07/2018: The Glasgow Women’s Library: The museum bringing women to the forefront of history and the future

Equality in Progress

During the period of the campaign we launched Equality in Progress, a new piece of research and held an associated conference that focused on equalities in the museum sector.

Equality in Progress: Research from a grassroots museum

Judges Visit

In addition to a tour of the GWL building and detailed information delivered by staff team members we hosted a gathering and lunch for the Judges to meet the wider staff, Board and volunteer team, along side invited supporters including creatives, artists, academic partners, learners and others who had a story to tell about the ways they had contributed to and benefitted from GWL. This included the Leader of Glasgow City Council and the Director of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts (GI).

During the Judges visit staff team members delivered presentations that outlined some of the work we undertake (with a focus on work in 2017) that illustrated innovation and being exceptional. The presentations were as follows:

Adele Patrick, Creative Development Manager
Slides · Notes

Donna Moore, Adult Literacy and Numeracy Development Worker
Slides · Notes

Jenny Noble, Museum Curator
Slides · Notes

Gabrielle Macbeth, Volunteer Coordinator
Slides · Notes

Rachel Thain Gray, Lead, Equality in Progress
Slides · Notes

Syma Ahmed, BaME Development Worker
Slides · Notes

Students Visit

During the bid period all the Finalists were visited by a group of students who had applied to survey the MotY Finalists’ offer, and promote and document their experience. GWL devised activities including a sample of GWL’s Women’s Heritage walks, a tour of the museum, Spine Poem workshop and the depositing of items donated by the student group into the GWL Archive.

Volunteer Involvement

Volunteers were included and involved in all stages of the bid, from the application, the judges and students’ visits, to the public engagement campaign. They were kept abreast at every stage of the process and showed incredible levels of support, sending text messages, emails, social media posts and cards in the lead up to and after the Winner’s announcement.

These were the key ways in which volunteers contributed:

Application process

One volunteer, Eirene Wallace, single handily produced the film which accompanied our application.

Two other volunteers, Katherine and Ruth, were interviewed for the film made by the Art Fund.

Public engagement campaign

Four volunteers recorded, edited and transcribed #MyMuseum films.

One volunteer attended the launch of the My Museum flag’s Glasgow City Chambers, documenting the launch for GWL’s records.

15 volunteers were filmed for #MyMuseum films.

Our team of 18 Front of House volunteers were active throughout the duration of the nomination, encouraging visitors to fill out the “I just wanted to let you know…” cards, telling visitors about our nomination and responding to the increased interest in our work and our collection.

Judges’ visit

16 volunteers made time to come and meet the judges, share with them how they are involved with GWL, as well as helping to set out lunch and refreshments.

Students’ visit

Four volunteers were involved in welcoming the students, sharing their knowledge of the collection and taking part in the programme of activities laid on for them.

Statistics and demographics

We were asked to submit information on Equality Monitoring and the volume of visitors to GWL during 2017. The data submitted is as follows:

Our visitors for 2017 totalled 20,000+, a 50% increase on the previous year. Based on figures so far for 2018, we are already anticipating a further 50% increase in visitors.

As is the case for all museums, it is not possible to gather detailed profile data for each and every visitor or event attendee, however GWL has built its own bespoke CRM Monitoring and Evaluation system to measure and analyse data gathered from the majority of attendees at our public and learning programme events and activities, and from other groups with which we meaningfully engage, for example volunteers and creatives that we work with. I attach a copy of the form we use in most instances (for people who are confident writers and speakers of English) for this data gathering.

The following percentages are based on the information gathered in 2017 from monitoring and evaluation forms submitted from people with whom we had a significant form of enagagement (e.g. attended an event, were volunteers or who attended learning programmes:

Age

(We have not included children)
16-24: 12%
25-44: 42%
45-65: 28%
65+: 18%

Gender

Female: 90%
Male: 3%
Non-Binary / Trans / other: 7%

Sexuality

Heterosexual / straight: 72%
Gay / Lesbian: 12%
Bisexual: 14%
Described in another way: 2%

Ethnicity

76% identified as White Scottish / White British.

The remaining 24% self-identified from 32 categories of ethnicity description based on the Census, including:

African/African Scottish/African British: 1%
Black/Black Scottish/Black British: 2%
Caribbean/Caribbean Scottish/Caribbean British: 1%
Indian/Indian Scottish/Indian British: 3%
Pakistani/Pakistani Scottish/Pakistani British: 1%
Chinese/Chinese Scottish/Chinese British: 1%
Irish: 3%
White Other Non-British: 10%
Other: 2%

The demographic for Scotland is that 4% of the population is BaME.

Disability

(Please note that these percentages total more than 100% since people can have more than one disability)

Learning disability: 4%
Mental Health Condition: 16%
Non-disabled: 70%
Physical Impairment: 4%
Sensory Impairment: 3%
Other disability / impairment / long-term / chronic condition: 6%

Socio-economic group

This is more difficult to gather specific data, but as we are based in the heart of a community that is in the top 5% most deprived in Scotland, it is probably reflective that 37% of our library ‘borrowers’ identify as ‘low income / unwaged / student.’

Locality

Our visitors come from around the world and around the corner and data reflecting geographic spread will differ between figures for visitors to the museum and those attending specific events / learning activities.

However, the breakdown for visitors recorded through our Visitor’s Book (rather than in monitoring and evaluation forms used at all events) is as follows:

Glasgow: 34% (of these, 21% are from our immediate neighbourhood – 7% of overall visitors)
Rest of Scotland: 29%
Rest of the UK: 16%
International: 21%

New/returning visitors

66% were new visitors; 34% were returning visitors.

Acceptance Speech

The bid lead for GWL, Adele Patrick, was asked to prepare a three minute acceptance speech ahead of the Award – all Finalists were asked to do this in the event of winning. The speech sought to contextualise GWL’s work at this specific moment in the museum sector and the Award’s history. It reads as follows:

Tonight is a watershed moment for both Glasgow Women’s Library and the museum sector in the UK.

It is the first time a museum rooted in activism and equalities has won this prestigious Award.

Thank you Art Fund and thank you Judges for this incredible accolade.

The decision sends a unequivocal message that inclusive approaches to collecting, governance and programming can result in, innovative, exceptional and award winning museums.

Our inclusion amongst such a formidable short list is recognition of the seismic changes we have wrought in 2017. However it is also an acknowledgement of an organisation that has come of age.

2017 was the year that gave rise to #metoo and intensifying debates on equality, and consequent interest in the records of activism and intersectional feminism – it anticipated the centenaries of the Representation of the People Act and of Scottish literary luminaries, notably Muriel Spark. This most fertile and febrile period for feminism has enabled us to bring into sharp focus two key facets of our work: the imaginative showcasing of the historic and contemporary contributions of women and our commitment to social justice locally and globally. This award recognises that GWL has something compelling to offer, through its work countering the past and prevailing erasure of women’s histories and in its foregrounding of equality and inclusion agendas within and outwith the museum.

Many have played their part in creating the GWL phenomenon, they include:

The 100s of creatives whose agency has made our collections, our participatory programmes, communications and environment totally unique.

The award should also be dedicated to people frequently called ‘hard to reach’ but as we prefer to say ‘the easy to ignore’; the literacy learners who have summoned up the courage to cross our threshold, bringing perspectives that have shaped our programming, survivors of violence and refugees whose insights have helped us understand better what a safe museum space would feel like, to those (including staff, Board and volunteers) who have contributed their personal and professional knowledge of the impact of structural, institutional and attitudinal racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and exclusion the grounds of disability or class.

This expanded ‘ownership’ has made a museum that represents, includes and is for everyone.

Over nearly three decades Glasgow Women’s Library has been kept alive and nurtured through the vision, prodigious skills and dogged determination of my co-manager Sue John. Our Board demonstrate the open mindedness that has enabled us to thrive and innovate and GWL has a truly incredible staff team that demonstrate commitment, and ethical, empathetic leadership beyond measure. Our awesome volunteers have driven and sustained the organisation from the outset, this award truly belongs to us all.

I would like to extend an invitation to you all, to come and experience our legendary, radical hospitality and witness a museum, built on equality that is now, like Jean Brodie, in its prime.

Thank you.

~