Ritmennt - 01.01.1997, Page 112

ERLA HULDA HALLDÓRSDÓTTIR
RITMENNT
Summary
On the first day of the United Nations' Interna-
tional Women's Year on the lst of January 1975,
the Library of Women's History in Iceland was
founded by Anna Sigurðardóttir, Else Mia Einars-
dóttir and Svanlaug Baldursdóttir. Anna pro-
vided the library with accommodation within
her own home and was its curator for 21 years
until her death, at 87, in 1996.
When the Library of Women's History in
Iceland was established, Anna Sigurðardóttir had
been collecting source material for the history of
women, both ancient and modern, since the ear-
ly fifties. She had also been an active member of
the Women's Equal Rights Association since
1947 and had indeed greatly influenced its
policies. She wrote many articles in newspapers
and journals on women's rights and women's
history and also produced a number of radio
programmes on these sultjects. Through her
worlt, Anna wanted to ensure the role of women
in history received a higher evaluation than had
been the custom, and she has certainly accom-
plished her goal. Her articles and radio
programmes were intended not only to draw
attention to women's history but also to be in-
formativ , and her books Vinna kvenna á Is-
landi í 1 0 ár (Women’s Work in Iceland Over
1100 Yea.sJ and Allt hafði annan róm áður í
páfadóm. Nunnuklaustrin tvö á Islandi á mið-
öldum og brot úr kristnisögu (They Danced to a
Different Tune Under the Papacy: The Two
Medieval Nunneries in Iceland and a Chapter in
the History of Christianity) distinctly revealed
that the role of women in the nation's history
was much greater than might be supposed from
reading traditional histories. Anna was always
prepared to assist anyone who came to the Li-
hrary of Women's History in Iceland in search of
sources and material, be they high school stu-
dents or highly-qualified professors.
Anna Sigurðardóttir received many awards
and distinctions for her pioneering work in
women's history and feminist studies and for her
role in the struggle for equal rights. She was an
honorary member of several societies and was
the first woman ever to be awarded an lionorary
doctorate by the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
of the University of Iceland in 1986. In 1978 she
was awarded the Order of the Falcon.
From the very beginning it had been the
dream of the founders and supporters of the Li-
brary of Women's History that it would eventu-
ally be housed in Iceland's National Library once
it had been built and tlris dream finally came
true, after many years of campaigning, when the
Library of Women's History was opened in the
National and University Library of Iceland on
the 5th of December 1996.
The Library of Women's History was from the
beginning intended to collect, catalogue and
preserve sources of women's history in both the
past and present. It is also intended to support
the cataloguing of sources which are preserved
elsewhere and to encourage researcli into
women's history and feminist studies and, most
of all, to disseminate women's history through
the publication of source data and scholarly
works.
It is thus the role of the Library of Women's
History to continue the life's work of Dr Anna
Sigurðardóttir and to encourage the pre-
servation, cataloguing, analysing and dissemi-
nating of historical sources concerning the life
and conditions of women in both ancient and
modern times.
(Translation by Júlían Meldon D'Arcy)
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