I’m intrigued about the opening of a new library wing at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). It has a world-first, tech enabled cataloguing system, called The O, which means you can just put a book down anywhere and the system will find it for the next reader.

“Phrontisterion is animated by technology that allows us to organise books however we want, while keeping track of everything—and thus does away with the in-many-ways-inadequate Dewey cataloguing system. It’s also a lot bigger than Mona’s old library. Since 2011, the collection has continued to grow and now boasts (literally, David boasts about it quite a lot) some 50,000 items in a range of formats, covering topics such as architecture, science, philosophy, statistics, literature, mathematics, numismatics, ancient Egypt and African art; alongside wine, beer, betting odds, religion, socialism, sex and—that old chestnut—death.”

This latest attempt at innovative library cataloguing put me in mind of art historian Aby Warburg and his library, which was arranged according to what Warburg called ’the law of the good neighbour'.

You can read an interview with David Walsh, the owner and creator of MONA:

A multi-millionaire on a mission: David Walsh expands his Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania - The Art Newspaper - International art news and events