The center is located at Josefsplatz 1, A-1015 in Vienna, which is the address of the Austrian National Library, and does not offer a separate facility for women's research.

Between 1986 and 1987, Christa Bittermann-Wille and Andrea Fennesz, conducted a feasibility study in coordination with the Austrian Ministry of Science, on the creation of an information and documentation center for women.

[1] The rise of Second-wave feminism and the establishment of new feminist research within academia had brought forward the dissatisfaction with the availability and depth of coverage of women's topics in traditional library collections.

[3] In 1991, Bittermann-Wille began a series of consultations with interested stakeholders to determine whether the project would be accepted by other women's libraries, archives and their curators and patrons.

The time period coincided with the birth of the digital age and archivists and librarians saw potential in the proposal, as long as the state did not dictate what materials should be collected and retained.

[7] ThesaurA was created in 1997 to provide a gendered language guide and inclusive reference to be used by archives and libraries to facilitate location of materials.