Even though we have been visiting Adelaide for over 30 years to visit my husband’s folks, I’d never been to the State Library. The Museum, yes. The Art Gallery, yes. Last week, my husband took me to see the place where he’d spent many, many hours wagging school to finish his essays – the staggeringly marvellous Mortlock Chamber, in its own wing of the State Library. The only word for it is magical. Hogwarts comes to mind. It’s attached to the new library buildings, and now seems to house an eclectic collection of old fiction and non-fiction. I picked out a clutch of 1930’s crime novels; a few bays away, the shelves held histories and biographies from the 1910’s and ’20’s, all shabby and much read. There were visitors wandering about the place, like us, and also students using the carved wooden tables and chairs tucked into each bay for study. And, amazingly, the place was quiet. No phones, no loud conversations. It was hushed, as libraries used to be. Beautiful!
The State Library of South Australia is officially the Second Most Beautiful Library in the world.
