Egypt’s revived Bibliotheca Alexandrina
As you may or may not know, the Library of Alexandria is important in Egypt and is a cultural center located on the Mediterranean Sea. Bibliotheca Alexandrina was built in 2002 and is a revival of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Construction on the new library began in 1995, and after seven years and 220 million in spending, the library finally opened.
Dedicated to being the center of excellence, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina aims to be the world’s window on Egypt and vice-versa, a leading institution of the digital age and a learning center. Make sure to visit this magnificent library whenever you’re visiting Egypt, as it does perform as not only a library but also a place of dialogue, learning, and understanding different cultures and peoples.
The building walls are made of gray Aswan granite and carved with characters from 120 human scripts. The main reading room is built beneath a 32-meter-high glass roof. The vast space and cascading levels make the library’s architecture striking and unique. The trip to this library is an adventure in itself since it holds so many different libraries and has rooms with other purposes, containing a lot of Egypt’s ancient history.
Visit the Library of Alexandria
The idea was to revive the old library after selecting a land plot between the Alexandria University campus and the new library seafront. The Ancient Library of Alexandria was established during Ptolemy II Philadelphus and was one of the ancient world’s largest libraries. Because of the old library, Alexandria is regarded as the capital of knowledge and learning. Demetrius of Phalerum proposed the very initial idea of a universal library to Ptolemy I Soter. Julius Caesar accidentally burned part of the ancient library’s collection during the civil war in 48 BC, but it’s uncertain whether it survived the burn or was rebuilt afterward.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina hosts many book fairs, launches, ceremonies, competitions, conferences, and even concerts, among many different events held in other areas and rooms of the library according to its purpose. Providing universal access to human knowledge, the library aims to preserve heritage for future generations. Many of the book collections available today in the library were donated from all over the world, such as a donation of 500,000 books received from the National Library of France in 2010, making the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the 6th most extensive Francophone library in the world.
The Library of Alexandria has enough space for 8 million books with a 20,000 square meter reading room. You can also find a conference center, libraries specialized for multimedia, the blind and visually impaired, maps for children, and more spaces with different purposes such as four museums, four art galleries, and a manuscript restoration laboratory, among others. The library spreads to 160 meters in diameter and reaches up to 32 meters in height. The carvings done on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina were in collaboration with artists Jorunn Sannes and Kristian Blystad. Vertical, north-facing skylights light the library’s roof to expose direct sunlight in the room, which is harmful to books and manuscripts. The entire library is filled with up-to-date digital information facilities and is also planned to accept a wide range of changing technologies. The aim is to digitally archive the past through the library’s websites, making any historical documents, books, or any piece of knowledge easily accessible and available.
Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt and has many unique and different attractions for you to discover, one of which is the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, so make sure you don’t miss out on learning its beauty. Visit the Library of Alexandria and pick your guided tour from 3 different languages; Arabic, French, and English. Grab yourself a book or visit one of the permanent exhibits and spend a little time discovering the area as the entire library is a masterpiece you will not regret visiting.
by Sherif Khalil