learning & events
portal holds workshops, classes, reading groups, musical performances, in-house events and more.
if you would like to host something at library portal, please email hellolibraryportal@gmail.com


psychology reading group
a new, fortnightly reading group for anyone (with a library card, no experience necessary) interested in the history, theory, research, and experiences of how people think, feel and behave. a text will be read together, then discussed as a group. no prior reading needed.
fortnightly on saturdays at 2pm (1.5hrs).
join to receive a library card here. please register your attendance here.

french conversation club
a casual conversation club for those looking to reconnect with la langue française. a text is read aloud, conversation follows. all levels welcome. email hellolibraryportal@gmail.com if you’d like to know more before coming along.
join to receive a library card here. please register your attendance here.
bisous

dream club
Dream Club occurs monthly, in the wake of a full moon.
Dream Club is, in essence, a study group to collectively record and share dreams, discuss interpretive practices and receive feedback on creative work.
Cost of entry is a dream (and a library card). Join to receive a library card here.
Register your attendance here.

philosophy and literature reading club
Each Sunday at 4pm, a short text is read and discussed. An introduction is given before the reading, so no prior knowledge or pre-reading is needed. This club is open to everybody regardless of "education" or "experience".
Email us at hellolibraryportal@gmail.com to receive weekly emails with the text.
Free for members. Register your attendance here.
Current Text: George Bataille’s “The Accursed Share”
Past weeks:
Thomas Moynihan: Spinal Catastrophism (2019)
Georges Bataille: The Accursed Share (1949)
David Graeber: Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011)
Byung Chul Han: The Expulsion of the Other (2016)
Frederic Jameson: Metacommentary (1971).
Simone Weil: Prerequisite to Dignity of Labour (1941).
Emily Hodges: ‘The Playfulness of Aesthetic Experience’ (2023).
Fred Moten, Stefano Harney: ‘The University and the Undercommons: Seven Theses’ (2004).
Sylvia Wynter's 'Unsettling the coloniality of being'. (2003).
Immanuel Kant’s ‘The Transcendental Doctrine of Elements, First Part: The Transcendental Aesthetic’ (1781).
Immanuel Kant’s ‘Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason’ (1781).
Guyer & Wood’s Introduction to Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’. (1998)
Yukio Mishima’s ‘Sun & Steel’. (1968).
Hito Steyerl's 'A Thing Like You and Me.' (2010).
Walter Benjamin’s ‘Romanticism: An Undelivered Address to Students’ (1913).

music composition club
bring the music you have composed or are working on and share it with others in a supportive environment. all people, experience level and music welcome. providing a space to connect, exchange ideas and learn from each other. please come along even if you wish only to listen :)
join to receive a library card here. register your attendance (and whether you’d like to share or listen/engage) here.

keyword: film club
Keyword is a monthly screening event that activates the literature of the Library Portal bookshelves through moving images. On the last Thursday of every month we project a selection of a short doco and a feature length film that builds a dialogue with ideas, concepts, and theories we’ve rummaged up from the collection. Keyword is a co-curated event, organised by a core team in collaboration with the audience.
Season 1 will kick off on July 31st with the first films chosen by the Keyword team, and the following months will be chosen by those who attend. Please register your attendance here.
Entry is a $10 donation that goes directly towards library portal’s rent. We will have decaf dandelion chai available for purchase, and will provide cushions and pillows, byo blankets, get cozy.
S1.2025_Keyword: Errancy
Season 1 of Keyword is themed Errancy. We will be interrogating the idea of errancy as a behaviour, a choice, a body, and an emotion. In film, errancy is explored through a broad range techniques—A plot refusing a trope, a director refusing a tradition; a character who makes the same mistake more than once, and the director that chooses to make that a part of their story. Errancy is deviant and playful, intentional and incidental; it’s a plea to hesitate when faced with the status quo. To err means to choose a path of friction, erring towards the otherwise.
Each month we will hint at the feature film by sharing the title of the short doco we will be screening. Season 1 shorts will highlight the work of German experimental documentary filmmaker Harun Farocki. But the feature film will remain a secret until the event itself.

library portal (re)opens
library portal will officially (re)open this may.
join us for a two-day fair of book-borrowing, music and learning within our new, heritage-listed home and its lovingly-tended garden.
free for library card holders (join library portal and receive a library card here)
$30 donation for one day, $50 for two for non-library card holders
all funds go towards rent & utilities. please reach out via email if you need a lower or no-cost option <3
tickets here.
SATURDAY
12pm: jd
2pm: poetry (lucy van, bona obiri-yeboah & genevieve callaghan)
5pm: joshua smeltink
6:30pm: ulcer
8pm or later...): sinus
~
SUNDAY
12pm: jack doepel & lia dewey morgan
2pm: dream club; dream mapping (byo dream memorabilia...)
4pm: reading by tilly lawless
5pm: philosophy reading group (get a flavour of past texts here)
6pm: driftwood
7pm: poetry (frank lord, george & lia dewey morgan)
8pm: fall sleep
𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟