writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

archives and libraries related to women have been established in order to document women’s lives
and deeds and to facilitate research in the area of women’s studies, based on multifaceted
collections of material. Our Foundation Bill states the purpose of our library as follows: ‘To gather
knowledge about the history of women, to present this information in an organised way to those
who are doing research today, and to preserve the written documents of today for future
generations’. A women’s library cannot collect all available written, oral, visual and threedimensional
documents; even though it is the sole and unique institution which collects material on
women, it has its limits. Generally poorly funded women’s libraries find that there are endless
collections to acquire, and at the same time, they are constantly aware of the risk of material being
lost or destroyed. But to prevent this fact they have to develop the concept of a feminist
consciousness to documents and they have to define the mission of a women’s library beyond its
general aims and tasks. A feminist consciousness is the sole guarantee that women‐related
documents will be preserved through the existence and the work of a women’s library. Through this
consciousness, activists and women in general will be drawn
into participating in the huge task of preserving our documents,
and bringing feminist consciousness to documents will ensure
that this process extends beyond the library walls.
When exploring the concept of bringing feminist
consciousness to documents, it is necessary to indicate what is
understood by ‘documents’. The sources we refer to are of four
types: written, oral, visual and three‐dimensional. In the case of
documents that women’s libraries cannot afford, either for
financial reasons, space limitations, policy decisions or simply
because they are part of other institutions’ collections (like
those of main libraries; state archives; records of religious
institutions, government and courts of justice, census, trade
unions and political parties, etc.), documents about women are
identified by producing bibliographies, catalogues etc., if
women’s libraries have the means to do so. Such records usually
raise the question, ‘where are the women?’ and thus it is
necessary to deal with them in a way which seeks out the
‘missing’ women, who exist but have been made invisible.
The Women’s Library, Istanbul
Photo by Ara Güler, 2007
Aslı Davaz
Co‐founder of The Women's Library Information Center Foundation, Istanbul.
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