"FemInfoteka": Creators of the feminist library about their project
IN RUBRIC "COMMUNICATIONS" WE TELL ABOUT GIRLSwho came up with a common cause and achieved success in it. But at the same time we expose the myth that women are not capable of friendly feelings, and can only aggressively compete. For two and a half years, St. Petersburg has been operating FemInfoteka, a public feminist library, which contains hundreds of books and zines devoted to gender sociology and other relevant topics. We asked the founders of the project Adeline, Sasha, Zhenya, Tanya and Emma to tell how it works and why, in the digital age, physical libraries are still needed.
About how "Feminfoteka" works
In 2011, Tanya started collecting the collection, it all started with a stack of zines, but the library did not have a permanent home, sometimes friendly organizations took the library to her, where she occupied one or two shelves of the shelving, and the rest was kept at home activists. At some point, the books moved to the storage of Emma, and then the thought arose that we must finally open the library in an accessible place. The team gathered together and friends, we turned to Open Space on Dostoevsky, 34, with a request to allocate a rack in the hall to issue books once a week, but Open Space offered us a whole kitchen. Then the kitchen was located in a separate room, we moved the table, dishes, kettle to the corridor, where the kitchen is still located. In the room we put the shelves and opened the library. It seems to us that this is very symbolic - the feminist library, which is located in the former kitchen. Until recently, the boxes with the collection of zines stood on the refrigerator remaining from the kitchen, but now nothing reminds about the kitchen.
The official opening of the library took place on March 9, 2016, and since then once a week we are open to visitors, this is every Friday from seven to nine in the evening. After some time, an activist library appeared in the "Open Space", so now we are sharing our room with it. The room is small, and there are more and more books, so we are now discussing redevelopment. In general, in the "Open Space" we are comfortable to work. And it also seems to us that the feminist library in a place where a bunch of civilian activists gather every day is useful in itself: like, feminism is near, you cannot get away from it.
In the room we put the shelves and opened the library. It seems to us that this is very symbolic - the feminist library, which is located in the former kitchen
The team of "FemInfoteka" - is five people, not all are now in St. Petersburg, two participants are engaged in the library remotely. For the library, such a number of people is quite small, but this is an activist project, so everyone still has to work on ordinary jobs. And, of course, it happens that none of us can come on duty. Then friends, acquaintances and volunteers come to the rescue, these are a few more people.
“FemInfoteka” is a non-profit activist project, we don’t take money from readers, don’t get paid, don’t pay for our beautiful home, and rarely spend money to buy books for the library (also because they don’t). The overwhelming majority of our collection are gifts from readers, after friends.
The “Open Space” itself, by the way, lives on a donation and lets not only us, but all the others free of charge (but only in a separate room), now they have another campaign to raise funds for rent and utility bills.
Since the opening of the library collection has doubled, mainly due to gifts. It has two sides. Of course, it is very cool that cooperation and free dissemination of knowledge is an idea that inspires not only us, but also our readers. But, receiving most of the books as a gift, we seem to lose control over the formation of the fund, the books do not always correspond to our views, for example political ones. We discuss this in a team, sometimes we make a decision not to take something, we have got a wish list, where we add those publications that are interesting to us, and we are trying to get them into the collection.
About Activism and Events
We do not have many activities, but they are dedicated to what really concerns us. Of the recent ones, for example, a meeting with a team of activists helping migrants and refugees in Germany; presentation of the third volume of American anarchist memoirs Emma Goldman and talk about the specifics of anarch-feminism, we conducted a film about the feminist exhibition "STOP Sexism", which was held in St. Petersburg in 2002, that is, more than fifteen years ago. This is the topic of feminist rarities. They showed a film about the exhibition, about the context of that time, and what the feminist exhibition at the center of St. Petersburg meant then, said its organizer, Olga Lipovskaya. Very soon we will have a presentation of a collection of feminist literature of the mid-nineteenth century, "Authorists and Poets".
It also happens that at their events we are invited by colleagues and comrades. Recently, we participated in a Mayakovsky library seminar, talking about books about feminist parenting (this state library in the center of the city inside and outside was all hung with posters about feminism and FemInfoteku!), In the book festival "Revision", where we presented The library and the participant of “FemInfoteka” was a moderator of the round table “Feminism in modern book culture”. Part of our collection was presented at the exhibition of the festival. And in the spring in Moscow, several of our Zinov went to the exhibition "O Zin, you are the world!".
It is important for us that our library is books not only conditionally on gender sociology, it is not oriented towards researchers, it is important for us to collect feminist literature so that everyone can find there what is interesting.
In 2016 in St. Petersburg there was LaDIYfest - a big feminist festival with a bunch of master classes, lectures, concerts, with film screenings. We, as a team of "FemInfoteka", helped to organize one of its platforms, in the "Open Space", and supported the festival information. Information support, of course, the most accessible option for us. Recently, for example, we became friends with Writel for women Writelikeagrrrl and decided to cooperate in this regard too.
We have a lot of familiar feminists and feminist and primary library groups in other cities and countries with whom we either did something together, or somehow shared our experiences. In Bishkek, in Amsterdam, in Minsk, in Poznan. Again, we recently met NoKiddingPress, it is now preparing some cool feminist books. We informationally supported the translation of the memoirs of Emma Goldman, an active anarchist activist of the beginning of the 20th century, this book was published by the group "Radical theories and practices".
In short, we consider ourselves a queer-feminist group and are doing a horizontal anti-authoritarian project. We were all part of feminist activism and before we took up the library, and now that we are involved in the femso-society, our positions are important and it’s important for us, well, if you don’t support discussions, then at least collective, we all hold similar views.
About the popularity of libraries
It only seems that libraries are losing popularity. After all, many books are simply not available online, there is no literature catalog with a rubricator, we have a bunch of rare editions - zin, magazines, and books, because feminist literature comes out in tiny editions and is rarely reprinted. Of course, it would be cool to have an electronic library in parallel - to collect what is already digitized, to digitize yours. This is what we are asked, for example, by readers from other cities. This is in our plans and dreams, but not yet implemented.
Our friends and readers are helping us with not reprinted publications for a long time. But the lack of translations into Russian is, of course, a problem. We have so many cool books, but in English - especially there are not enough modern Russian-language books in the sections on physicality and sexuality, queer theory, sex work. There are more than half in foreign languages in the zin collection, and there are often very important texts about support in cases of violence, about anti-sexism practices in activist communities and the punk scene, about non-normative gender and sexual identities.
It is important for us that our library is books not only conditionally on gender sociology, it is not oriented towards researchers, it is important for us to collect feminist literature so that everyone can find what is interesting there. Someone wants to read fiction, but so that it is as free as possible from sexism and homophobia, someone is looking for books for their children, someone is fond of biographies and loves to read memories. And for all these books there are sections: Herstory, fiction, children's literature.
