Our Project
Created in 2015, the goal of Women’s Knowledge Dig- ital Library (WKDL), formerly International Women’s Library, is to support the spread of applicable knowledge by and about women by providing a convenient digital portal of information about women, feminism, gender, and LGBTQ+, with a focus on justice, equality, and empowerment for women around the world. WKDL is a partnership of the UW System Gender & Women’s Stud- ies Librarian’s Office; Women’s Knowledge International; UW System Women’s & Gender Studies Consortium; the UNESCO Chair on Gender, Wellbeing and a Culture of Peace at UW-Madison; and the 4W Initiative.
Activities & Impacts
Curated by 4W Leader and Gender & Women’s Studies Librarian Karla Strand, WKDL provides users with quick and easy access to thousands of free resources vetted for authority, value, currency, and reliability. By offering these trustworthy materials in one place, WKDL takes the time and guesswork out of searching for useful sites on the internet. Resources include research reports, organization websites, toolkits, action and assessment plans, infographics, and more. In addition to WKDL, the UW System GWS Librarian’s office also publishes Resources on Gender and Women’s Studies: A Feminist Review (RGWS), formerly known as “Feminist Collections,” a quarterly review of the latest print, electronic, and audiovisual resources for research and teaching in gender and women’s studies. This of- fice also publishes research guides, a quarterly review of feminist periodicals, and a bibliography of new books on gender and feminism.
Leaders
Next Steps
Women’s Knowledge Digital Library will be updating its digital portal with several new features, including the tag cloud, advanced search functionality, and improvements to user experience. Resources will also continue to be added as WKDL grows and evolves. Like UW-Madison’s UNESCO Chair on Gender, Wellbeing and a Culture of Peace, WKDL aims to provide access to evidenced-based resources that can empower women around the world. Moving forward, resources supporting work of the UNE- SCO Chair on Gender, Wellbeing and a Culture of Peace will be prioritized for inclusion.
Find more information about Women’s Knowledge Digital Library at: https://womensdigitallibrary.org/.