A room of her own: The battle for the Women's Library Women's Library is no stranger to struggle The Women's Library is no stranger to struggle. It was borne out of the votes for women movement, set up in 1926 as the Library of the London Society for Women's Service, which was the successor of the London women's suffrage organisation led by Millicent Fawcett. Its first home was in a converted pub in Westminster and the Fawcett Society - an organisation that campaigns for equality - ran the library until 1977, when it moved to the City Polytechnic and later London Metropolitan. In 2002, the collection moved to a specially-built £5.5m home, designed by architect Clare Wright, on the site of old East End wash houses. Amongst its 60,000 books and pamphlets and 16,000 objects are texts that reflect the reach of women's history from a 1695 text calling for the formal education of women to a first edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. These sit alongside papers belonging to romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland and signed biographies of Margaret Thatcher. Treasures among its artefacts include the return ticket to Epsom (pictured left) bought by suffragette Emily Wilding Davison when she died after stepping in front of the King's Horse in 1913. "The tantalising thing about this is you've got this tiny purse with this tiny ticket, but it's a return ticket," says Beth Mercer, head of the Women's Library. So the questions is, did she intend to martyr herself that day or to make a statement? With such a collection, it is little wonder that the uprooting of the Women's Library has roused strong passions. When London Metropolitan announced that it could no longer maintain the library and there was the risk of it being mothballed, Dr Laura Schwartz, an assistant professor at Warwick University, was amongst those who mobilised a campaign to save it. "It is crucial to have our own independent building which makes visible the importance of women's struggle for equality which has otherwise been hidden from history," adds Dr Schwartz, who has found the library invaluable for her own research into feminist history. Petition attracted 12,000 signatures Along with other library users and members of staff, Dr Schwartz launched the campaign, with a petition attracting 12,000 signatures. Their campaign, which won the support of luminaries such as Sandi Toksvig, had three aims: to keep the collections together; to keep the staff; and to keep the building. Campaigners won two out of three. The collections will be kept together and the staff retained; but the library will now live at LSE from next year, with a new reading room, archive area and exhibition space. LSE say they will be able to offer free public access to the collection. For their part, LSE believe that the Women's Library will fit right in at its new home. Elizabeth Chapman, director of library services at the university, points out that LSE has its own heritage of commitment to women's rights. The offices of the Women's Social and Political Union - or "the suffragettes" - were originally in Clement's Inn, now part of the LSE campus, and one of the university's four founders in 1895 was, Beatrice Webb, a self-taught economist. She paid particular attention to the establishment of the school's library, where her works now reside, along with the biggest collection on lesbian and gay activism and the archives of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. "Once we announced we'd won the bid," recalls Chapman, "people wrote to me and said this is brilliant, this fits our mission." Architect's impression of how the Women's Library will look at LSE (Picture: Architecture PLB & Keyframe Visuals) Her plans for the library include digitising the collections, making them more interactive. As part of this, she hopes to develop an app that will allow people, when pounding the streets of London, to call up items from the LSE and Women's Library collections that tell them more about women's history in a particular area. Also, she wants to capture the lives of young women who are not producing archives on paper. "We have the capability to capture things like websites and blogs," she says. We want to be able to do that with young women and be able to provide that kind of research for the future. Mercer, who has been managing the Women's Library on an interim basis, is in favour of the move to LSE: "The Women's Library needs stability and needs to be embraced, taken in and promoted and invested in." London Metropolitan did the right thing by putting their hands up and admitting they could no longer afford to run the library, she adds. They could have shut the doors and only opened once a week... but they didn't. It's just so important that this collection did not get mothballed. It was so important it didn't get sold off," she says. While she acknowledges that it is "unfortunate" about the building, she adds that there was no room for growth in its current location: "It's the collections we need to be thinking about." Library building 'like a body and its insides' Campaigners, however, are dissatisfied. Dr Schwartz says they were "very disappointed" with how London Metropolitan conducted the bid process, adding there was a lack of transparency and consultation. Although she feels the campaign has "achieved something," she feels very strongly that "the library should stay in its home." The building is purpose built. It was funded by Heritage Lottery money that friends of the library spent ages developing a bid for and it seems a terrible waste that it's being taken out of that home," she added. That was echoed by Wendy Davis, a fellow campaigner, and founder of Rooms of our Own, an organisation that looks to provide spaces for women's organisations in London. She points out that the library is an entity: "[Clare Wright] designed the building around the books and the objects, so there are special containers and shelving and lighting. It's like a body and its insides. The current Women's Library in Aldgate (Picture: London Metropolitan/Women's Library) Highlighting events run by the Women's Library such as book clubs and children's groups, she says: "Nobody is going to go wandering up to LSE and have a browse around. It's an academic library - it's quite intimidating. She too is disappointed over a perceived lack of consultation and says other bidders for the library regarded the process as rushed. London Metropolitan say their consultation process was "open and transparent" and that a "range of stakeholders were engaged in the process" including the Fawcett Society and the Arts Council. All potential bidders were given the opportunity to assess the current library building (pictured left), they add, but none submitted a proposal to maintain the library on that site. It is unclear what will happen to the building now, with London Metropolitan saying it is considering the site's future. Davis, who has a background in architecture, is now taking steps to safeguard the library such as getting it locally listed so that it cannot be touched without the local council's agreement. She is also exploring ways of keeping the collection in the building, including forming a trust that could maintain the building, meaning that LSE would only have to look after the books. A few local organisations have already expressed an interest, she says, but she is disappointed that LSE will not meet with the campaign to discuss other options. LSE say, however, that they cannot responsibly consider any other option than what they committed to in their bid and it would be unfair to agree to a meeting to discuss alternatives. 'The women's movement marches on' "I understand the disappointment of people very attached to that building," added Dr Chapman. But we need space for the collection to grow. "What will be here will be stronger than the sum of its parts - a much broader and better collection," she adds. While campaigners such as Davis continue their battle to save the library in its current home, other supporters are sanguine. Speaking personally, as an historian and archivist, Dr Anne Summers said she had hoped against hope that another custodian would keep the collections in the building: "It didn't seem impossible." "But I appreciate that one can't force an institution to shell out a minimum of £500,000 per annum when they could practice economies of scale by taking the collections in-house," she said, adding that she was "pretty confident that LSE will now be good guardians of the collections." It is a retreat, acknowledged Dr Summers, a "defeat even." But, she remains philosophical: "It has happened; and the women's movement, like the Fawcett Society itself, marches on with or without dedicated premises." 'The Long March to Equality: Treasures of the Women's Library', an exhibition of the rarest items in the library's collection, opened on October 17.