IT took a softly-spoken Mancunian, Sue John, to explain a home truth about Glasgow to me - it is easier to get folk from abroad to visit Glasgow's Bridgeton Cross than it is to get residents from the city's West End to go there. Us Glaswegians don't like to move out of our geographical comfort zones.

It's not unattractive Bridgeton Cross these days. The Brigton Umbrella, the Victorian cast-iron mini-bandstand in the middle has been spruced up as has some of the surrounding areas used during the Commonwealth Games. True, some of the pubs are still obsessively festooned in Union flags in tribute to the Rangers-leaning enthusiasms of their customers, but West Enders need not swoon, it is hardly the Bridgeton of the pre-war Billy Boys razor gangs. Besides, it would be a strange country indeed if you were not allowed to display your national flag.

Sue is speaking to me round the corner from Bridgeton Cross in the quiet backwater of Landressy Street where the magnificent former Bridgeton Public Library, one of many across Scotland paid for by billionaire Andrew Carnegie - it must have been a decent era when billionaire businessmen paid for libraries rather than super yachts on the Med - has reopened as Glasgow's Women's Library. And please, no trite remarks about how you didn't know you could borrow women.

Glasgow Women's Library has had a busy life. For over 20 years volunteers have been gathering books and artefacts about the lives of women, including of course the Suffragettes. A little shop in Garnethill was initially taken over to house the library, even though funding was limited. Supporters were frequently asked to help pay the rent. But then the canny staff tailored programmes which attracted funding from purse-holders such as Glasgow City Council. It moved for a while to the Trongate, then inside the Mitchell Library, and now Bridgeton. But it is not just a library. It's a museum also, dedicated to women's history, possibly the only one in Britain.

The literature they distribute about their work and programmes includes extensive details of how to get to Bridgeton by train, bus, bike or foot which is why Sue, the library's development manager, remarked to me: "It's funny. People from abroad have no qualms about making their way to Bridgeton, but sometimes it's a challenge getting people from the West End here due to misconceptions about the East End." Actually, it's a shrewd move having the library situated in Bridgeton, as the staff encourage local residents to become involved. East end women who perhaps missed out on education when they were younger are coming along to be helped with their reading and writing skills, so the library is not some remote ivory tower where the educated talk amongst themselves about empowerment and obscure feminist issues. The library had an outreach worker who would simply pitch up in a local Greggs or a chippy to give a reading from a book or from poems in order to engage with local people.

Events take place all the time there. Simply lending books is the least of their tasks, although my eye is drawn to the book Why Men Don't Iron, and I glance through it hoping for a quick excuse. It seems that while women have a "glass ceiling" to break through in order to reach the top in professions, men have been breaking through a "glass floor" to be left behind in many areas. At least I think that's what it says. but I'm not here to read books. The Saltire Society, which champions the arts and culture in Scotland, was announcing the Outstanding Women of Scotland for 2016. They include Amal Azzudin, one of the original Glasgow Girls, the pupils in Drumchapel who campaigned to halt the brutal detention and deportation of asylum seekers.

People who moan about asylum seekers coming to Britain, should meet Amal. Now an articulate engaging young woman who went on from Drumchapel to gain a BA in community development and an MSc in human rights and international politics, she is now a worker with the Mental Health Foundation. Any country should be delighted to have such a hard-working individual enhancing their population.

"I am so grateful," says Amal, "to be adopted by Glasgow and Scotland. I love this place so much." Amal, born in Somalia, continued: "My mother sacrificed so much so that me and my sister could have a life where we could be safe. I have witnessed so much humanity since coming to Glasgow. This is my home." It's a pity the editors of some of the more excitable right-wing press don't spend time with people such as Amal.

If there is a common thread amongst the Outstanding Women is that females can achieve far more than they expect if they can just burst through against the difficulties men often put in their way. Another award winner is MP Dr Philippa Whitford, a breast cancer surgeon who was told repeatedly during her medical education that women did not do surgery. As she told us: "I attended one interview where I was asked how, as a woman, I dealt with my 'monthly mood swings'. I pointed out that I worked with men and had to cope with their daily mood swings."

Other award winners were author JK Rowling, retired judge Lady Cosgrove, and leading cancer researcher Professor Karen Vousden. Lady Cosgrove revealed that she was advised not to become an advocate as many early female advocates gave up due to the lack of work sent their way. But after becoming the first female judge in Scotland, she has been followed by many women so that it is no longer remarked upon.

There is a real feeling of energy and enthusiasm at the Women's Library as the volunteers strive to make it as welcoming as possible. But don't take my word for it. You can even get a train to Bridgeton Cross from Hyndland, right in the heart of the West End, so really you have no excuse not to visit.