One of the constant questions when working as a private consultant is where to go to get some work done between meetings in the city.  There are only so many cafes you can bide your time in without spending the entire days’ income on coffee and pastries, so when the caffeine level in your system has built up to the extent that even your eyes have begun to shake it’s time to find somewhere else to work.

One of the city’s hidden gems in which to do this is the Mortlock Wing of the State Library.  Dating back to 1884 and named after the dashing John Mortlock – amateur film-maker, fast-car driver, greyhound owner and heir to the Martindale Hall pastoral fortune – the Mortlock Wing is hidden away in full sight on North Terrace.  John Mortlock, despite the allure of the greyhounds (or possibly because of them), married late in life and he and his wife Dorothy remained childless, with books as their substitute children. After a lifetime supporting the State Library through the purchase of rare books for the collection they blew their non-existent children’s inheritance on a $1.8m gift to the library when they died.

The moment you walk in you wonder why you haven’t spent more time here before.  It’s a bit like getting into a warm bed at the end of the day – something you somehow haven’t had time for but the moment you sink into it and pull the quilt over you you wonder why the hell you weren’t there earlier.  In the case of the Mortlock that warm quilt is the full length solid wooden bookcases filled with books from last century with exciting titles such as “To kill is my vocation”, “The mystery of Grudge Mountain” and the slightly less exciting sounding “Monday Night”.  (Actually I lost interest in Monday Night mid-way through the first page when the author started talking about “tooth-brushes with renewable bristle sections” and “fards of the prevalent cheap French marks”… Apparently fard has something to do with cosmetics.  Household items and the English language it would seem have both changed since the writing of this literary monument in 1938.)

The Mortlock Wing is the kind of place where you can easily imagine a Bond style tussle taking place.  Or better still a battle to the death between two sword-wielding Victorian gentlemen in a fight for the love of a Kate Winslet figure tied up in the romance section.  There is even a bar hanging from the roof to assist the hero when the time comes to vault across the atrium and free Kate with a single extravagant swipe of his sword before carrying her off for a quick ravishing down by the Torrens.

The ancient books on the shelves are from the long-defunct Adelaide Circulating Library and the original terms of lending are strictly laid out inside the front cover as a warning to borrowers.  A fine of TWOPENCE per day shall be levied on any poor sod who cannot wade through the fards of Monday Night inside the allotted 7 days.  And woe-betide the subscriber who lends a book to a non-subscriber, for the Secretary and Librarian Chas M. Reid shall have no hesitation in expelling them from the library forthwith.  I wonder what Chas would have made of a Kindle?

With long wooden desks and semi-comfortable chairs it is a quiet place to set yourself down for a couple of hours, although if you have long legs you may end up with sore knees from the strategically hidden timber that runs underneath the length of each desk.  Should your eyes stop shaking there is a café downstairs where you can top up on coffee and on the day I was there they seemed to have a reasonable selection of cakes on offer, although my excursion into Monday Night had put me off food a bit so I didn’t get to sample them.  Free Internode wifi is available with quite good speeds (6Mbps down and 10Mbps up) – I was assured by the lovely lady who showed me around that the wifi is best at the Northern end of the building – and power outlets are hidden away in the floor beneath each desk.  At the risk of letting the cat out of the bag I’d highly recommend spending an hour or two there if only to put the finishing touches on your fard before your next appointment.