The virtual library thing is now escaping from Borges' imagination and into the real world. Consider, for instance, the Australian Script Centre, down there in Tasmania. The ASC is now under the directorship of Gail Cork, whom some might remember from her Australia Council days, and has just received a considerable boost from the Theatre Board - $600,000 over the next three years.

In collaboration with Currency Press, Playlab and Playwriting Australia, the ASC has put together australianplays.org, a smart new e-commerce portal, which will be officially launched at the National Play Festival in March. What this means is that practically every Australian playwright you can think of is now for sale online in digital format. This makes up a little for the pathetic shelf-space most bookshops give to plays (which might be even worse than the space they give to contemporary poetry).

Aside from this brilliant online resource, the ASC itself boasts a vast archive of Australian work, including some interesting anthologies. I've been browsing the CD Collection #7, which consists of 27 new plays, many of them award winners. It's a diverse bunch, ranging from Version 1.0's Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue to Patricia Cornelius's The Call to Kit Lazaroo's True Adventures of a Soul Lost at Sea. A steal at $25. Hie thee hence and check it out.

Meanwhile, I have a problem. How do you stop listening to Antony and the Johnsons? I seem to be under a strange and intoxicating enchantment...