Help the Feminist Library build its new home

Wow - you are all amazing! We’ve had another fabulous week on Crowdfunder, thanks to you! We have now nearly reached 80% of our target! This means that we are now just a little over £6,000 away from our crowdfunding target and well on track to reaching it! :) In fact, if we can give it another good push in the remaining 3 weeks, we may be able to reach at least some of our stretch funding target - the total budget for the move is £65,000! - meaning we would be able to afford to build exhibition space in our new home, buy much needed new boxes for our precious periodicals, and more, potentially! 

We would like to take this opportunity to extend another massive THANK YOU to all our wonderful supporters, who have helped us spread the word far and wide - our original call for support tweet alone was now retweeted over 300 times! - not to even mention all the other shares and gorgeous messages of support - and anyone who covered our story. 

Last week, our interview for Dissident Island Radio aired on Friday evening. We also had an article about our campaign published in the Londonist the same day, as well as our story of struggle and survival on History Day blog (we will also be speaking about the Library and our campaign at the History Day 2018 conference next week and Museums Showoff tomorrow!). And we’ve received a lovely blog post from FLA Network (Feminist & Women’s Libraries and Archives) just this morning. Last week we were also interviewed about the campaign by a local Peckham journalist and Artefact magazine. And we’re still eagerly awaiting the release of our recent interview for Dazed magazine. So keep an eye out for yet more coverage coming out soon! 

To add to all the excitement, we have been meeting loads of our soon-to-be neighbours in Peckham, and have by now met loads of amazing local - feminist and community - groups, including a new feminist mag coming to Camberwell and Peckham soon, a new girls football group, Girls United FC, an inspiring sewing project for empowering women, Make it Studio, Hub & Culture, who’ve invited us to speak at the opening of their new space, and more! We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who’s welcomed us to Peckham already, and can’t wait to meet even more of you lovely people on our next trip to Peckham! 

We have also received the first amazing draft drawings - inspirations for our special edition prints coming soon - from Lucie Russell of Drawing People Together. Drawing People Together (with Lucie) provide cheap & free community drawing events around Peckham, and have worked with us before, delivering workshops at the Library. Lucie is also behind our ‘not a pu***’ design that’s proven to be one of our most popular and long running designs of all times! 

We are also grateful to Lucie, as she has proven to be one of the most invaluable connections to our new home, as an active member of the Peckham community she has provided us with many useful tips on how to reach out to the local community there successfully. Lucie says that the Feminist Library is another very welcomed asset to the community.

Drawing People Together (and Lucie) will be running a drawing workshop, in collaboration  with the Feminist Library at the upcoming Peckham Christmas Salvage Yard event on 2nd Dec, where we will also be having a stall. Join us, it will be fun! On the same day, we have been invited to speak about the Library at this beautiful event organised by Feminist Archive South, and we just couldn't say no to it, so we will be in Peckham AND Plymouth that day! And don’t forget to save the date - 8th Dec - for our Winter Fayre in your diaries (details coming shortly, keep an eye out on our website and social media - or better still, sign up to our newsletter, if you haven't yet, and get all the info about these and other exciting events straight into your inbox)! It will be the last big event in our home of 32 years! 

Last, but by no means least, our marvellous matron, Ali Smith, has been in touch and, has decided to donate a set of her books - and a name of a character in her next book! - to add to the growing list of our crowdfunding campaign rewards! What an incredible week!!

We are extremely grateful to Lucie, Ali and all the other amazing writers, creative organisations and individuals, donors and supporters, who have donated their time and work, and helped with spreading the word, to ensure that we can make our crowdfunding efforts a success - every little share counts! Keep an eye out for more details on the others coming soon here! 

Please help us to spread the word about our move campaign even further - we still have some 20% to go to cover our initial target: for basic costs of the move. And then another £35,000 to cover the full costs of the move after that. 

Seeing all the support we have received during the campaign already, the Feminist Library team feels incredibly lifted and we are super confident that, together, with all the amazing supporters that we’ve got, we can do it - we can cover all these costs by the end of this exciting campaign!