Who we are
Jessie Street National Women's library is a specialist library, collecting material about women and women's issues. It is self-funding and dependent largely on membership subscriptions, donations and fundraising events to meet its running expenses. It is staffed by volunteers, many of whom are professional librarians, who willingly give personal attention to users and their needs. The archivist is the only employee, and works part-time.
An annually elected Board consisting of up to 13 members, meets regulary, administers the Library's finances, issues a quarterly newsletter and organises fundraising events.
What we do
JSNWL is a specialist women's library that is open to the public for reading and research. It is staffed by a group of dedicated volunteers who will give personal help with all enquiries.
Lending Policies
Books
Books from the Research Collection must be accessed at the Library, although many of them are available on interlibrary loan, for the usual loan fee. Books that are out-of-print or otherwise irreplaceable are accessible only at the Library. Books from the Loan Collection may be borrowed by financial members. These will be posted to members who live outside Sydney or are otherwise unable to visit the Library. We specially welcome enquiries from women in remote areas, whose access to women's material is limited.
Archives and Serials
The archivist will search archival material for relevant information to meet requests. We will also send photocopies of articles from serials. There is a fee for our search and photocopying services.
'Students from the University of Technology, Sydney, may borrow from the Loan Collection on presentation of a Student card.
Functions
We hold regular lunch-hour talks in Sydney and Canberra and occasional functions in Queensland. Our big fundraising event of the year is the annual luncheon in Parliament House in Sydney. We also put on displays and exhibitions.
Who was Jessie Street?
Jessie Street (1889-1970) was an activist, who worked throughout her life to improve the status of women, both in Australia and overseas. Established in 1989, the centenary of Jessie's birth, the Library was named in her honour.
Jessie Street - an inspiraton to all women
The causes Jessie fought for were many. Among them were: equality of status for women, equal pay, the rights of women to retain their jobs after marriage, appointment of women to public office and their election to Parliament. She stood for Parliament twice herself and was only narrowly defeated each time. She was interested in the plight of Jewish refugees, and campaigned for the elimination of discrimination of Aborigines. She was also interested in the peace movement. She founded the United Associations of Women in Australia in 1929, one of the most politically forceful women's organisations in the country. The UAW was part of the International Alliance of Women, which lobbied the League of Nations in Geneva on women's rights.
Jessie was well-known internationally, attending women's conferences all over the world, and worked with women's groups in different countries. She was the sole woman on the Australian delegation to the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. With other women, she was instrumental in having a permanent Commission on the Status of Women established within the United Nations, separate from the Human Rights Commission. She was its first Vice President. Jessie was also instrumental in initiating the campaign to amend the Constitution to allow Aborigines to be counted in the census.
Books on Jessie that can be bought from JSNWL
- Jessie Street: A Revised Autobiography edited by Lenore Coltheart (The Federation Press, Sydney, 2004)
- Jessie Street: Documents and Essays edited by Heather Radi (Women's Redress Press, Sydney, 1990) (JSNWL holds the only copies of this available.)
- Jessie Street : A Short Biography by Heather Radi (produced by Jessie Street National Women's Library, 2002)
Our history
The idea of establishing a women's library, conceived by Shirley Jones and Lenore Coltheart, was born of frustration with the difficulty of finding and accessing material on women in Australia. Lenore Coltheart spoke at the meeting to celebrate the centenary of Jessie Street's birth and got a very positive response. They named the Library in her honour.
Launch of Jessie Street: A Revised Autobiography in the Lower Town Hall in Sydney, March 2004. Left to right: Maxine McKew (guest speaker), Lenore Coltheart (who revised the autobiography), Shirley Jones (MC) and Elizabeth Evatt AC (at the microphone) Elizabeth Evatt launched the book.
The first AGM of the Association was held in August 1989. Virginia Blain was the first chairwoman. Sir Laurence Street, Jessie's younger son, agreed to be patron and was later joined by the Hon. Elizabeth Evatt, and poets Judith Wright and Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal).
In February 1990 the first newsletter appeared, a three- to four-page photocopied effort now a twelve-page professionally printed quarterly. In March 1990 the Library was incorporated and became a registered charity with tax-deductible status. Its objectives were: to heighten awareness of women's issues; to preserve documents on women's lives and activities; to support the field of women's history; and to highlight women's contribution to this country's development.
The association now had members most from Sydney and NSW, but with a sprinkling in other states. Membership fees and donations began to produce a small but welcome income. Fund-raising activities such as raffles, book sales, and dinners were begun.
Donations of books began to arrive. The core collection of 500 books came from the estate of the feminist Eva Maria. Later donations have come from women's organisations, women moving into retirement villages, women academics and publishers. In 1993 the Canberra Women's Archive, which documents two decades of the history of the women's movement in Canberra, was donated. Other smaller collections have followed. A grant from the State government in the late nineties, enabled the Library to employ an archivist part-time.
The Library's first reasonable home was a room in the library of the Teachers' Federation building, and cataloguing began. The next move, in 1993, was to the NSW Writers' Centre at Rozelle, where the Library remained until December 1997. The search for permanent premises led to the offer of the heritage-listed but derelict Marrickville Town Hall, but the Library was unable to raise the million dollars needed for renovation. In April 1999, thanks to the support of the City of Sydney Council, JSNWL moved into quarters in Town Hall House.
Fundraising became a necessity, but the income from talks and a prestigious luncheon, first held in Parliament House in 1995, and now an annual event, raised enough to meet daily running expenses. Grants from various organisations have helped maintain the archives. A number of small groups were set up outside Sydney and in 1996, the first of many Queensland functions for JSNWL was held in Brisbane. In March 2003, the first lunch-hour talk organised by a group in Canberra,was given. These are now regular features. In 2003 there were about 50 volunteers contributing in total about 400 hours a week, or 20,000 hours a year, in monetary terms equal to an annual contribution of at least $300,000. Volunteers, many of them professionals, have kept the Library running and other volunteers give their time to help with non-professional tasks in the Library and with functions and other activities. In June 2000, the Library launched its website, which was redesigned in November 2005.
When the Library outgrew this space, the Council fitted out premises at the Ultimo Community Centre near Darling Harbour and the Library moved in in October 2005.
The Library is proud of its current achievements - the catalogued books on the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN), the ongoing indexing of the archives, the Tapestry and Fact File projects and the small but growing collection of theses from women students. Its continued existence is due to dogged determination, and the work of its Board and its team of committed volunteers.
COMMENT "I would like to send this message of congratulations to everyone who has been involved in the establishment of the Jessie Street National Women's LIbrary, to those who dreamed of having such a library, to those who put in endless hours of work to make that vision a reality, to those on the sidelines who encouraged and supported the core team in many ways, and to those in State and Local Government who were so impressed by the dedication, hard work and tenacity of the Committee that they found a way to establish a library that will be widely accessible" - The Hon. Elizabeth Evatt on the occasion of the launch of the LIbrary in Town Hall House.