The collection at The Women’s Library is made up of donations from our generous members and supporters. We thank you for considering a donation of books or other materials to The Women’s Library.

Accession policy

The Library is currently interested in receiving titles that are in excellent condition and meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Non-fiction written by women on issues relating to women such as women’s history, feminism, violence against women, women’s activism, women and politics, women and work, women and the arts, or women around the world.
• Plays and poetry by Australian women.
• Fiction, including feminist and lesbian fiction, written by women and published in the last four years.
• Publications by a women’s press (e.g. Spinifex Press or The Women’s Press).

Donation enquiries

If you wish you donate books or journals, email collection@thewomenslibrary.org.au first to see if the books are suitable. Please supply a list of publications with the title and author (and optionally publication date), as this allows us to check if we already have the titles in the collection. After we receive your enquiry, our staff will check the catalogue and then contact you to arrange a date and time for you to drop off your donations during library hours. 

Unfortunately, The Women’s Library cannot accept all donations due to space and resource limitations. We will not accept items that:

• are already held in the collection
• are in poor physical condition (i.e. yellowing, mouldy or brittle paper, defaced, damaged or missing pages)
• fall outside the library’s areas of interest, e.g. novels by male authors

Also, periodicals will only be accepted if they are full runs or fill gaps in current holdings.

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We cannot guarantee that all donations will remain permanently in the library collection. We will dispose of any publications that we cannot use by offering them to other organisations, selling them in book sales or recycling them.

Our careful collection management over the many years we’ve been in operation has resulted in a special and unique collection. We appreciate your donations and your understanding of the fact that we cannot accept everything people want to pass on to us.