When looking through our collection of playbills, it’s easy to let them all blur into one. Girls! Strip shows! Dancing! But what was it like to be one of those girls, and were they all doing the same thing? Librarian Zoe Scott Fitzgibbon chatted with Audrey Mann to find out more. Audrey Mann, born in…
Staff Picks – Favourite Women of Leeds
For International Women’s Day 2021 our staff have chosen some of their favourite women with Leeds connections. We hope you enjoy reading about Catherine, Beryl and Sue. Catherine Buckton (1826-1904) was a writer and campaigner who was passionate about women’s education, child welfare, suffrage and social reform. She was in fact the first woman to…
Waging War on the Wiki Gender Gap
As part of our International Women’s Day series of blog posts our Senior Librarian Manager Louise Birch chatted with Curator Lucy Moore of Leeds Museums & Galleries about the gender imbalance of Wikipedia, the nature of who should be creating content, existing barriers and specifically the Wikiproject Women in Red, a project addressing the gender…
Glimpses of Mary Gawthorpe
As International Women’s Day approaches, we look at some inspirational women of Leeds, as chosen by Local and Family History staff. Here librarian, Helen Skilbeck, reveals her admiration of a local suffragist. A personal favourite of mine is Mary Gawthorpe (1881-1973) who was a teacher, suffragist, suffragette, organiser and public speaker for the WSPU (Women’s…
The Other Project: Chapter Two
The Other Project, co-ordinated by Third Year Fine Art student Mia Ferullo, is a collaboration between Leeds Central Library and York St John University’s second year students. The students were divided into four groups, each being given an issue of the Leeds Other Paper. With a combination of Fine Art, Photography and Illustration students, this…
The Other Project: Chapter One
The Other Project, co-ordinated by Third Year Fine Art student Mia Ferullo, is a collaboration between Leeds Central Library and York St John University’s second year students. The students were divided into four groups, each being given an issue of the Leeds Other Paper. With a combination of Fine Art, Photography and Illustration students, this…
The Story of Leodis – photographic archive of Leeds
Today’s post comes from Senior Librarian Manager Louise Birch who will take us back in time to explore the origins of the Leodis website, and what it was like to be an indexer of images. The year is 1999, Tony Blair is Prime Minister, Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ exhibits at the Tate, about 12 million…
A Pirate’s Life for Her!
Fidget Theatre’s new show Pirate Bonnie launches next week for the half term holidays so we caught up with them to find out more about their brand new production and the inspiration behind it. Can you introduce yourselves and Fidget Theatre? Hello! We’re Fidget Theatre – theatre makers Ruth Cooper and Andrea Heaton. We’re based…
