The printed collections at the Women's Library contain more than 60,000 books and pamphlets, more than 3,500 periodical titles (series of magazines and journals), and more than 500 zines.

[1] The Library's museum collection holds more than 5,000 objects, including over 100 suffrage and modern campaigning banners, photographs, posters, badges, textiles, and ceramics.

Douie remained in post for 41 years, during which time she took a small but interesting society library and turned it into a major resource with an international reputation.

Members of the society and library included writers such as Vera Brittain and Virginia Woolf, as well as politicians, most notably Eleanor Rathbone.

[6] During World War II it suffered bomb damage, and the library had no permanent home until 1957, when it moved to Wilfred Street, near Victoria railway station.

[9] The site chosen, in Old Castle Street, Aldgate, in the East End of London, used to be a wash house, a place of women's labour, and the architects maintained its facade.

[18] The University invited bids from interested institutions, and the proposal of the London School of Economics (LSE) was found the most acceptable.

It guaranteed to preserve, maintain and develop the collections as an individual entity within the British Library of Political and Economic Science, with a dedicated reading room and archival space.

Personal archives held at the Women's Library include those of Lesley Abdela, Adelaide Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Louisa Garrett Anderson, Margery Corbett Ashby, Lydia Becker, Helen Bentwich, Rosa May Billinghurst, Chili Bouchier, Elsie Bowerman, Josephine Butler, Barbara Cartland, Jill Craigie, Emily Wilding Davison, Charlotte Despard, Emily Faithfull, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Vida Goldstein, Teresa Billington-Greig, Elspeth Howe, Hazel Hunkins Hallinan, Mary Lowndes (see also Artists' Suffrage League Papers), Constance Lytton, Harriet Martineau, Edith How-Martyn, Angela Mason, Hannah More, Helena Normanton, Eleanor Rathbone, Claire Rayner, Sheila Rowbotham, Maude Royden, Myra Sadd Brown, Nancy Seear, Baroness Seear, Elaine Showalter, William Thomas Stead, Mary Stott, Louisa Twining and Henry Wilson.

The members raise much needed funds for the enhancement of the collections, and have purchased rare items at auction, financed the digitisation of recorded interviews, and sponsored exhibitions.