Librarianship has been particularly welcoming to women and yet the careers of male and female librarians have not run in parallel. Women's role in the profession has evolved against a background of disapproval, and women librarians have found the paths of their careers hindered by a lack of parity in pay, status and prospects. A study of the history of women in libraries therefore entails an examination of both the opportunities and the obstacles they encountered along the way.

Women can justly claim to have been librarians for as long as the profession has formally existed. Their inauguration into the profession began on 5 September 1871 with an advertisement which appeared in the Manchester Guardian. It called for respectable, intelligent, young women to apply for the position of assistant. If this advertisement had been aimed at young men, it would have elicited only a few replies. In fact, the response was huge. Twenty applicants were short-listed, and three were eventually engaged on the trial wage of six shillings a week.

The decision to employ women in this capacity was a stratagem of economy. The library movement had expanded rapidly, and had soon outgrown its base of public support and funds. Moreover, at Manchester, the Library Committee was concerned at the rate at which the young male assistants were leaving to find work with greater financial rewards. The experiment was successful, and by 1879 Manchester was employing thirty-one women assistants at ten to eighteen shillings a week. Seven other libraries followed this lead: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Derby, Newcastle upon Tyne, Paisley and Smethwick.