After 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.
“We’ve developed a way for you to look at the physical book, but also then to look at a digital double of the book — and this is a digital double, unlike any that you’ve experienced before,”
she said.
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)
Walsh spent his childhood in the library
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.
“This is a place to come and be free in what you look at, how you think about it, and what you want to think about it.“
Books spin on a wheel in one of the library rooms. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)
Breaking free of Dewey Decimal
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.
“Everything gets re-photographed and re-catalogued based on photographs.“
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 interwoven objects, with the links between them spun by librarians who are curators, and who can, as well as highlighting knowledge and learning, highlight artistry.
“Meanwhile, the O knows where everything is and can, if you like, reveal myriad connections to other items. Tumbling you, Alice-like, down a rabbit hole of associations.“
The library contains an “ammonite vending machine”. Alas, the fossils are not for sale. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)
Library cost more than original museum
Phrontisterion is located beneath Mona’s Elektra amphitheatre and is connected to the rest of the museum by tunnels — a construction process that took four years.
“We had to take out about 20,000 cubic metres of soil and rock for the excavation — so that’s about eight Olympic-sized swimming pools,” Mona chief executive Philippa Holmes said.
The price tag of the new wing — which includes the library, amphitheatre and tunnels — was “just north of $100 million”, meaning it cost more than the original building of Mona.
The library was built around ‘Rouge Battery’ by Matthew Barney, which remained in place throughout construction. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)
As of November 2025, Mona had lost $408 million since its opening — something Walsh was not bothered by.
Walsh’s writing about the library, which he has been “fantasising about since before Mona opened”, points to why he pursued the library despite the cost.
“From libraries I came, and to libraries I return,”
he said.
Entry to the Phrontisterion library at Mona is included with a museum ticket.
A cave-like section of the library is designed for young readers. (Supplied: Mona)
