SAVE THE WOMENS LIBRARY CAMPAIGN UPDATE

CAMPAIGN CALLS FOR REOPENING OF THE BIDDING PROCESS TO

SAVE THE WOMEN’S LIBRARY

The campaign to save The Women’s Library from closure and relocation today held a lively demonstration outside the Holloway Road campus of London Met, where a selection panel was meeting inside to make recommendations on LSE’s bid to take over The Women’s Library collection and move it into its own library.
The selection panel, set up by Dr Paul Bowler, Deputy Vice Chancellor of London Met, to decide the fate of The Women’s Library, met this afternoon to decide whether to allow its collection of material to be moved to the LSE.


The panel agreed to meet representatives from the campaign before their meeting, but the panel was unwilling to inform us of the outcome of their deliberations before they are ratified at the next London Met Board of Governors meeting on 27th September.

If the decision to move the collection to the LSE were allowed to stand, it would mean the effective closure of The Women’s Library, with the loss of the purpose- built building in Old Castle Street, E1, which was opened only ten years ago with the aid of £4 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Addressing the panel on behalf of the Save the Women’s Library Campaign, its members argued that it is imperative that the library remains its current building with its current staff. They lobbied the panel to re-open the bidding process so that the LSE and any other interested institutions could resubmit more acceptable proposals, on the grounds that:

• Moving the collection to the new LSE site would change it from a living to a dead collection, with a loss of accessibility for its local, national and international community of users.

• The bidding process has not been transparent and has been rushed through without proper consultation.

• It has recently come to light that London Met has misled stakeholders, Women’s Library staff, readers and donors, by initially claiming that it would be handed over as a package, which would keep the building, collection and staff together. However London Met later refused to include the building as part of the package unless it was leased for prohibitively high rents.

• In general the bidding process appears to not fulfil the university’s legal obligation towards transparency and equal opportunities.

In the light of this, the campaign fears that it is left with no alternative but to explore the legal ramifications of London Met’s lack of transparency and consultation with stakeholders, and its failure to uphold its equal opportunity responsibilities.

Help save The Women's Library

 ... "Because well behaved women rarely make history."

The Women's Library is the most extensive women's history collection in the UK. It is currently housed in a purpose-built building in East London, which campaigners fought hard to have built to home the collection in 2002. Over the past 10 years it has grown from strength-to-strength and now functions as a cultural centre hosting events, exhibitions, talks and provides local community groups and organisations a space to hire. Its staff have worked tirelessly to build and draw new audiences to the materials which have been gathered over the past 86 years and which continue to be. The building is vibrant and accessible, a cultural centre and a focal point for activism - it is truly the kind of home that women's history, so often forgotten about, deserves. However, this cultural centre is now under threat.

London Metropolitan University, the current custodians of the library, have decided that they can no longer run the collection, and have opened the bidding process for a new institution to take over the running of the library. However, they have not made the retention of its East London home an essential part of the selection criteria, and this means that the institution that takes over the running of the collection could move it to a much less accessible location, destroying all of the community links to the collection which have been built over the last 10 years. Staff at the library are clear that this is not what they want to happen, and is not what is best for the continuation of such an important collection.

The following is a list of bidders for the library, announced recently:

• Senate House, University of London (Christine Wise, Historic Collections and Head of Special Collections: christine.wise@london.ac.uk)
• Manchester City Council (libraries@manchester.gov.uk)
• London School of Economics, University of London (Elizabeth Chapman, Director of Library Services:e.chapman@lse.ac.uk )
• Warwick University (Robin Green, Librarian: robin.green@warwick.ac.uk )
• University of York (Stephen Town, Director of Information and University Librarian:stephen.town@york.ac.uk)

We're asking feminists, historians (and anyone else!) connected to these institutions – be you students, alumni or staff – to write to your head of library services to ask that they consider including the retention of the building as part of their bid. You can use the example letter below as a starting point, but personalised letters are best, so try to include your connection to the institution, and any personal comments that you might have. If you receive a response, please forward it to savetwl86@gmail.com.

To Whom it May Concern,

I am writing with regards to your institution's bid to take over custodianship of The Women's Library collection.

The “Save The Women's Library” Campaign was initiated by staff, users and supporters of The Women's Library when it became clear that London Metropolitan University had made the decision to divest custodianship of the collection to another institution. The aims of the campaign have been as follows: to keep the collection intact; to retain its expert staff; and to remain in the dedicated building in East London where it has been housed since 2002. The campaign are delighted that a number of bids for the collection, including your own, mean that the collection is highly likely to remain in tact. However, we are very concerned that London Metropolitan University have not made the retention of the dedicated building an essential part of the bid.

The collection currently housed in a purpose-built building in East London, which campaigners fought hard to have built to home the collection in 2002. Over the past 10 years it has grown from strength-to-strength and now functions as a cultural centre hosting events, exhibitions, talks and provides local community groups and organisations a space to hire. Its staff have worked tirelessly to build and draw new audiences to the materials which have been gathered over the past 86 years and which continue to be. The building is vibrant and accessible, a cultural centre and a focal point for activism - it is truly the kind of home that women's history, so often forgotten about, deserves. In the run-up to a major suffrage anniversary in 2018, The Women’s Library should be looking to thrive, not just survive. Staying in its building, near its audiences, with its staff, offers a sound basis for doing this.

I am therefore writing to encourage you to consider the retention of the building as part of your institution's bid for the collection. I am sure that staff at the Library would be happy to speak with you personally about why they feel the retention of the building is so important.

I look forward to receiving your response.

Yours faithfully,

RHWACA @ Unravelling Equality - the public spending cuts on women parliamentary seminar

On the 22nd of June we attended Unravelling Equality - the public spending cuts on women parliamentary seminar which was put together by the Fawcett Society, Coventry Women's Voices, and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice and was held in the House of Commons in Westminster.

The committee room, which main wall ironically was dominated by a huge historic portrait of a men only parliament, was full with people, the majority women, from many organisations nationwide such as Women against cuts and the National Association of Widows and Disabled people against cuts.

The meeting began with a overview of the implications and impact the government's choices were going to having on women which was given by Anne Bird, the acting chief executive of the gender equality campaign organisation, Fawcett. Yesterday , Fawcett released research analysing impact of changes so far and recommendations.

There was a recognition that cuts need to be made however the the multitude of cuts mean many women will feel the impact of cuts in many ways and cuts don’t effect all women equally as Fawcett's research. One suggestion that was brought up is that before public authorities decide to make cuts they should look at where other organisations are making cuts in order to avoid completely taking away vital services that women need.

At the meeting we were provided with a summery of the key findings in the human rights equality assessment created out by the organisers of the seminar and carried out in Coventry. The report focused on eight broad areas that were going to be a negative impact on women: Employment, housing, incomes and Poverty, Education, Violence against women, Health, social care and other support services; Legal advice services and Women’s voluntary organisations. The full summery can be found here  

“Main Human rights Impacts:

Women victims and survivors of violence may be affected by cuts to voluntary sector services, cuts to the budgets of the police, Crown Prosecution Service and NHS, cuts to welfare and housing benefits and cuts to Legal Aid. These may mean less successful investigation and prosecution of offenders, more ongoing mental, physical and sexual health problems for women and more women trapped in violent relationships. This engages a broad range of human rights issues.


Cuts to Legal Aid - may leave women in vulnerable situations with no legal advice or support making it difficult in practice for them to exercise their rights and potentially violating their right to fair trial and an effective remedy.


Women’s Income - Cuts to welfare benefits and housing benefit may push women into poverty, impacting on their right to health or even their right to life.


Women Needing Care - The combined impact of changes to health and social care budgets, and cuts to welfare benefits may lead to human rights issues for women needing care. Human rights that could be engaged include the right to life, the right not to be subject to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to respect for private and family life .


Cumulative Impacts –There is also the potential for cumulative effects of all the cuts and changes identified in this report to lead to further human rights issues arising for women in Coventry.”


This is a section of the summery I found to be useful for the RHWACA and other anti cuts women's groups:

“ All actors who are concerned about the human rights and equality impacts of the spending cuts on women need to continue to take action to reduce and eliminate negative impacts. Actions include:

in Coventry. Coventry Women’s Voices and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice hope to continue this work with a longer term monitoring project looking at the actual impact of the cuts. We also hope to develop a guide for other organisations wishing to carry out similar projects in other areas. Funding is actively being sought for this work.

Monitoring - central government is currently moving to a different model of equality monitoring where “challenge from the public will be the key means of holding public bodies to account for their performance on equality”.3 Voluntary sector and other bodies have an important role to play in monitoring the impact of policies on the people in their communities. This is particularly true when so many Equality Impact Assessments currently undertaken by public bodies are so weak. 


Campaigning and advocacy – Voluntary and community groups can use the evidence of impact they gather through their work, and research projects such as this to increase public pressure for action to be taken to combat human rights and equality issues.


Legal Action - Where violations of equality duties and human rights obligations are identified, then cases can be brought to the courts in order to enforce obligations. There have already been successful challenges through the courts to the public sector spending cuts.”


The meeting was very informative and I think that the report gives the Royal Holloway Women Against Cuts Alliance and any other organisation like us quite clear cut objectives: Make sure that impact of university and student union gender equity policies when it comes to access to education, student life and the education given itself is recorded and monitored correctly. And to use this evidence of impact to increase public pressure for action to be taken to combat human rights and equality issues. And where violations of equality duties and human rights obligations are identified - take further action.

Susuana