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, which was once one of the largest libraries in the world but was lost a long time ago.

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

This amazing library has space for eight million books. It holds books in many languages, including Egyptian, classical Arabic, English, and French. In 2009, it received a gift of 500,000 books from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, making it the sixth-largest library for French-speaking people in the world.

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 manuscripts.

History

The idea to bring back the Library of Alexandria started in 1974. A group from Alexandria University picked a spot near the sea where the old library once stood. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and partners from UNESCO supported this idea.

In 1988, UNESCO held a contest to pick the best design. A team from Snøhetta, a place in Norway, won. Work began in 1995 and finished in 2002. Many countries helped pay for it.

The library got lots of 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 large, covering 20,000 square metres across eleven levels. When it was built, this reading room was the biggest in the world. The library also includes 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. This area is named after Taha Hussein, an Egyptian teacher who lost his sight when he was very young.

The library also has several museums. The Antiquities Museum has over 1,300 old items, including treasures found under the sea near Alexandria. The Manuscript Museum shows rare old books and writing. The Sadat Museum holds items that once belonged to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, like his clothes and awards.

The library has special exhibitions too. One shows digital projects, like archives about past leaders. 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 gathered around the building to help keep it safe from damage. Many students from nearby universities are regular visitors to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2011, the library hosted several 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, like a gift that no one really needs. They worry that some books might not be allowed in the library.

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 only 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 about a group of people was displayed with other important religious books. This made many people upset. The library’s director then asked to remove that book from the show.