The Women’s Library at LSE

Date posted: January 13, 2014

Construction of a new Reading Room for LSE Library has now commenced. The Reading Room will provide a high quality, secure environment where Library users can access The Women’s Library at LSE, the oldest and most extensive collection of women’s history in Europe.

ArchitecturePLB have designed the Reading Room in consultation with the LSE Library team, learning from the latest best practice at institutions such as the National Archives at Kew. The Reading Room design incorporates display cases to allow exhibition of artefacts and interpretative information about the historic collections. The construction programme will be fast-tracked, with a formal opening ceremony for the new Reading Room in spring 2014.

The Reading Room is supported by a new secure, climate controlled archive store also designed by ArchitecturePLB, as part of an earlier phase of work involving refurbishment of a number of aspects of the Library. ArchitecturePLB are currently working with Library staff on the design of a ground floor exhibition space to facilitate larger exhibitions of materials from the Library’s historic collections. The exhibition space will be constructed in a third phase, following completion of the Reading Room.