Liberating Histories at LSE Late
LSE Late: Celebrating The Women’s Library, London,
7th March 2024
LSE Library Late was a celebration held on the eve of International Women’s Day at the 10-year anniversary of The Women’s Library Reading Room at the London School of Economics. Over 200 people attended across the evening.
“The reading room was buzzing!”
“People talking about objects from my youth and events that I lived through as ‘archives’ made me feel very old … but being part of tonight also made me feel very young again and full of energy!”
Reflections on the event
Here are some of Women’s Library curator Gillian Murphy’s reflections on the event:
“These are just two of the comments we received following LSE Library’s first Library Late […] The catalyst for the event was the ten-year anniversary of the official opening of The Women’s Library Reading Room, a beautiful space on the 4th floor of the library for readers to consult archives during the day. On this night though, the reading room was full of people enjoying the collection, looking at displays of See Red Women’s Workshop posters, material from Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, or taking the opportunity to read the iconic women’s liberation movement magazine Spare Rib.
Attendees listened to short talks by some of the researchers who have used the collection with mini displays of the material they had consulted such as copies of the West Indian Gazette produced by Claudia Jones.
The Women’s Library shows that, whilst libraries and archives might appear to be repositories of historic material and records of past deeds, they do in fact play a vital role in how we understand the world today. We hope that the next decade of The Women’s Library reading room at LSE is as fruitful as the first.”
Liberating Histories curated a display of feminist magazines and gave a short talk which introduced the project and discussed some of the powerful political feelings that we have encountered in our research into feminist magazines.
Some photos from the session
