One test of a man's importance is if he has a library named after him. On that measure, Attorney-General George Brandis, the self-described "minister for books", can take his place alongside George Washington and other great men.

Coined the Brandis Library by Labor staffers, Senator Brandis' $7000 taxpayer-funded bookcase, built to house $13,000 worth of taxpayer-funded books and magazines, is too big to be moved into his new Parliament House office.

For the time being at least, the now empty Brandis Library will be in the office of Labor's Senate deputy leader Stephen Conroy.

A Labor staffer said he had never seen anything in a parliamentary office like Senator Brandis' bookcase. The shelves, if laid end-to-end, would be longer than an Olympic-size swimming pool.