Shakespeare, Bowie, Einstein: Mona opens one-of-a-kind underground library

There are 30,000 books currently on display at Phrontisterion, including many from Mona founder David Walsh's private collection. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) The new $100 million underground library Phrontisterion is now open at Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (Mona). A decade in the making, the project fulfils a long-held dream of Mona founder David Walsh and houses 30,000 books — although not on display in the usual manner of libraries. Items on display include a Shakespeare's First Folio, a first-edition Lolita and signed editions by Umberto Eco, JG Ballard and Hunter S Thompson. Link copiedShareShare articleAfter 10 years of planning and at a cost of more than $100 million, the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart has opened the doors to its new subterranean library. The library is named Phrontisterion, which Mona said comes from the Aristophanes "piss-take" play, The Clouds. The library uses technology to create "live bays". (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) The most valuable book on display is a copy of William Shakespeare's First Folio, printed in 1623, which Mona librarian Mary Lijnzaad described as the "number one love" of her life. Mary Lijnzaad says the library's copy of William Shakespeare's First Folio is the love of her life. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) The library also has a first edition of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and signed editions from authors Umberto Eco, JG Ballard and Hunter S Thompson. On top of that, there are handwritten documents by David Bowie, Walt Whitman, Gustave Flaubert, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Guglielmo Marconi and Alexander Graham Bell. Visitors are able to browse the collection and artwork or set up shop to study or work, but books cannot be taken out of the library. There are 30,000 books currently on display, including many from Mona founder David Walsh's private collection. Digital copies allow the public to explore certain significant books at the library. (Supplied: Mona) Writing in the Mona blog ahead of the library's opening, Walsh described a childhood spent in the two rooms of the Glenorchy library, in Hobart's north. David Walsh. (Supplied: MONA/Jesse Hunniford) "Most kids were limited to two books at a time. I was allowed six, and I made a serious attempt to read every book I took home. And I made a serious attempt to take home every book in the library," Walsh wrote. The love of libraries and books continued for Walsh, whose interests spanned science, science fiction, classical literature and mathematics. The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic was instrumental to David Walsh's understanding of risk. Now, a copy is on display at Phrontisterion. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) But it was the discovery of Richard Epstein's Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic at the State Library of Tasmania that informed his understanding of risk, ultimately leading to his gambling fortune, which helps fund Mona. "It's difficult to appraise, but without Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic there's a good chance that there'd be no Mona, and no library," he wrote. The study room at Phrontisterion. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) Lijnzaad said Phrontisterion was not like other libraries. "David has given us freedom to think outside of the normal constraints," she said. "Most public libraries in Australia are publicly funded, so there's a degree of governance that comes with that we are thankfully free of. Books spin on a wheel in one of the library rooms. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) Newly filed accounts give a first glimpse of Mona's ultimate holding company, showing the loss-making gallery remains heavily reliant on gambling funds. Lijnzaad said the brief from Walsh for the library was "no Dewey Decimal" — the system libraries traditionally use to order and categorise books numerically. "That was really a challenge because if you're not going to order things in Dewey Decimal order, how do you do them and sort of not go mad or just throw books randomly on the shelf?" Lijnzaad said. The company that designed Mona's O app, Art Processors, was brought in to help. Founding principal of Art Processors, Nic Whyte, said Dewey Decimal was "encoded in a 19th-century view of the world". "Breaking free of Dewey Decimal and enabling books to be placed anywhere means that we can form much broader relationships between the books," he said. Nic Whyte from Art Processors says the Dewey Decimal system is out. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) Parts of the library have "live bays" to draw those relationships, using moving neon lighting to highlight certain books. "We can deal with so much chaos on a daily basis and still know where everything is," Whyte said. An artwork in the library's basement by Joshua Yeldham. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough) On the Mona website, Walsh described his thought process. "I want a system where we can move books arbitrarily, but still know where they are," he wrote. "Here books become

Shakespeare, Bowie, Einstein: Mona opens one-of-a-kind underground library

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