Jessie Street National Women's Library: Honouring Australian stories

Jessie Street National Women's Library is dedicated to collecting and safeguarding a collection of Australian women's lives, experiences, and contributions. Named after Jessie Street, a lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, peace, and elimination of discrimination against Aboriginal people, the library ensures these voices aren't lost to time. From feminist serials, badges, ephemera, oral histories, to photographs, diaries, books and political posters, the collection is a rich archive of Australian women's work, words, and history. The library is run entirely by volunteers, including librarians and archivists, using Koha Library management system.

Catalyst interviews Sherri Hilario and Lynne Morton, volunteer librarians at Jessie Street, on their collection and work over the last decade.

The library doesn't just archive history - but helps bring it to life. The collection has often aided artists to create stories, including a local opera production and a History Channel series, Aussie Inventions That Changed The World. The series featured Myra Juliet Farrell, an Australian inventor and artist known for her boneless corset and over 20 patents. Jessie Street National Women's Library held the only copy of Who’s Who in the World of Women (New South Wales Australia 1936). The librarian joined the set with the book in hand, helping ensure Myra’s story was told accurately.

In 2024, the 50th anniversary of Australia’s first women’s refuge, Elsie Refuge was a time for reflection and honouring the legacy. Jessie Street curated an exhibition of 1970-90’s feminist posters highlighting the range of activism around establishing women’s refuges including domestic violence, sexual violence, women’s housing and discrimination. Sherri shares, "The impact of the posters meant a lot for the attendees to see that documentation. That this still existed and showed their work. What they addressed all those years ago still exists."

The physical posters, hand screen printed, created an immediate connection to the past. The fact that the posters were protected, stored, and displayed meant vital and confronting parts of Australian history remain. The women's commitment to the movement radiated off the tangible and physical pieces of history.

Jessie Street also preserves the diaries of Mary Ryan, the first woman on Australia’s original Housing Commission, ensuring her contributions to society are remembered. Recently, they’ve been running the Tapestry Project which brings the stories of women to the front and centre. They’re still welcoming submissions of memoirs, or stories about people’s mothers, grandmothers or friends. The Tapestry Project weaves together histories of women from all different walks of life, creating a place for those stories to be told.

From PhD students uncovering lost letters to researchers exploring hidden stories, Jessie Street is a valuable resource. With collections donated by individuals, it continues to grow, helping deepen the understanding of Australia's past. If you or someone you know holds pieces of Australian women’s history, consider donating—because even the smallest contributions can bring a world of context.

Students often use the library for their research, leaning on the expertise of librarians who volunteer research hours to support student questions. Sherri shared that a PhD student was thrilled to find letters in the library vital to her thesis. Lynn recalls the time she supported a court case in it’s final hours. The lawyer needed to find a transcript to determine if there was a question they could ask relating to the case. Jessie Street had the only known record, and Lynn found it in the nick of time and sent through an image of the transcript. Moments like these really capture the magic of the library's collection. 

With different volunteer librarians coming in each day, Sherri shares “the availability of easily accessed documentation about all aspects of Koha library management system, as an open source library software, is very helpful for the library.” In Australia, many state governments have included using open source software in their digital strategies.

Open source means libraries like Jessie Street have the flexibility of using software that works for them. Plus, it enables libraries and organisations around Australia and globally to come together to sponsor, suggest, and share features with and for the collective.

Without the space, people, and the library software to run the library, parts of history could be lost. Preserving the Jessie Street collection ensures a broader understanding of the past and honours those who led movements and the women of every day. Since they house vital elements of Australian history, Jessie Street wants a system that is sustainable, intuitive, and supported.

With Koha hosted by Catalyst, Jessie Street’s library system receives monthly maintenance and security fixes, from a team of developers who are also available for consulting and training. The flexibility of Koha means they can take their own photos of their unique artefacts and upload them straight to the catalogue. The system enables Jessie Street to protect knowledge in an array of forms and make it accessible – keeping history alive, and empowering the communities they serve.

Catalyst supports Jessie Street National Women's Library with their hosting and maintenance, ensuring data sovereignty. To protect their collection and data under Australian laws, Catalyst hosts Jessie Street National Women’s Library on Australian servers.

Jessie Street's collection is an example of the flexibility of library software working for you. With over 400 badges and plenty of posters to catalogue, the librarians enjoy having the freedom to organise their collection in a way that works for them.

Rōpū kohinga at Catalyst works with libraries and organisations to care for their collections with technology. Kathryn Tyree, Rōpū kohinga service manager shares her love of the library. “I love that this library is political, and the collection is tangible. For me, seeing the badges and posters is kind of like peering into a movie set, but it's real, and the history isn't even distant. Seeing the artifacts that our mothers, grandmothers and aunties created and wore, despite the personal risk... It makes me feel angry, proud, and determined. The librarians who volunteer to care for this collection haven't forgotten, and neither should we.”

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