Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a big library and cultural center on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria, Egypt. It was built to remember the Library of Alexandria, a very large library from long ago.

The building opened to the public in 2002. When it opened, its reading room was the largest in the whole world.

This amazing library has space for eight million books. It has books in many languages, including Egyptian, classical Arabic, English, and French. In 2009, it got a gift of 500,000 books from the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is more than just a library. It also has a conference center, many special libraries, several museums and art galleries, a planetarium, and a lab for fixing old books.

History

The idea to rebuild the Library of Alexandria began in 1974. A group from Alexandria University chose a spot by the sea where the old library used to be. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and partners from UNESCO supported the plan.

In 1988, UNESCO had a contest to choose the best design. A team from Snøhetta, in Norway, won. Building started in 1995 and ended in 2002. Many countries helped to pay for it.

The library received many books and information from places like the Internet Archive and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

Features

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has space for eight million books. Its main reading room is very big and covers 20,000 square metres across eleven levels. When it was built, this room was the biggest reading room in the world. The library also has a conference center, special libraries for maps, multimedia, and for people who cannot see well, as well as libraries for young people and children. There are four museums, four art galleries for temporary shows, 15 permanent exhibitions, a planetarium, and a lab for fixing old manuscripts.

The main reading room has a high glass roof that looks like a sundial, reaching out toward the sea. The walls are made of gray granite and have carvings from many different scripts.

Services

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina can hold up to eight million books. Visitors can get printed copies of books using a special machine called the Espresso Book Machine.

There is a special area called the Taha Hussein Library that helps people who cannot see very well. It uses special tools to let them read books and magazines.

The library also has several museums. The Manuscript Museum shows rare old books and writing. The Sadat Museum holds items that once belonged to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.

The library has special exhibitions too. One shows digital projects. Another displays films and photos about Alexandria. There is also a large screen that shows videos in a special room.

The Digital Assets Repository lets people search and view the library’s digital collections online for free.

Management

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is led by a group of important people. There is a Council of Patrons, a Board of Trustees, and a Director to help manage it. The first Director was Ismail Serageldin, and he worked there until May 2017. After him, Moustafa El Feqy took over.

The Board of Trustees has between fifteen and thirty members. Five of these members are from the Egyptian Government. They include the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Minister of Culture, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Governor of Alexandria, and the President of the University of Alexandria.

Post-revolutionary involvement

During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the library was closed for a time. Young people helped keep the building safe. Many students from nearby universities visit the Bibliotheca Alexandrina often. In 2011, the library held public meetings about the revolution and social work, and everyone could attend these events freely.

Criticism

Some people think the library is a big, expensive building that doesn’t do much. They worry that some books might not be allowed there.

The building looks like a sunrise, and some felt too much money went into building it instead of buying books. When it first opened, it had 500,000 books, but later got another 500,000 books from France.

At one show in the library, a book with harmful and untrue ideas was displayed with other important books. This made many people upset. The library’s director asked to remove that book from the show.