Three of the works by acclaimed Melbourne artist Emily Floyd were purchased by the university while four were donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program. Ms Floyd also donated other artworks.

Previously the works had been part of the exhibition Anti-totalitarian vectors at Anna Schwartz Gallery in 2019.

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They consider the notions of political philosophy and political struggle, language and libraries, and include four aluminium 'book-form' sculptures.

Ms Floyd has been a professional artist for more than 20 years after graduating from RMIT in 199.

She has show works in Australia and overseas and is currently working on a project for the Shanghai East Library in China.

She said it was great to see the library space evolve with the new artworks.

"Libraries are always exciting places for me," she said. "Seeing the students in the space with the works and using all the new equipment and furniture to make study huddles is inspiring.

"The works are two giant open book forms, which have little characters inside them. They go from floor to ceiling in the space to create alcoves for students to work around and have some privacy.

The collection also features 12 speech bubbles which each have quote from philosopher Agnes Heller who worked at La Trobe in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The work itself is centred around Agnes Heller who was a key social and philosophical thinker," Ms Floyd said.

"I'm really interested in the history of critical thinking in Australia and particularly local history.

"Heller was someone who stood up to popularism and totalitarian thought, which is something completely true for these times when we are in the in middle of a war globally born from popularist thinking.

"Agnes stood up and asked what young people need and questioned what (young people) were asking to encourage and foster that debate. She encouraged a salon of thought and critical thinking."

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