Quezi

Inside Bibliotheca Alexandrina - courtesy Argenberg - CC-BY

The story of the Library of Alexandria has grown into one of the great legends of the ages.  The destruction of the library has been attributed to most every faction and ruler of ancient times.  This has been done, not for the purpose of telling the history of that institution, but mostly as political slander.  It has been blamed on Julius Caesar, The attack of Aurelian in the Third century, The decree of Theophilus in 391 AD and the Islamic conquest in 642 AD.

The fact is, there were at least three Great Libraries coexisting in ancient Alexandria, not just one.

Today there is virtually no information about the whereabouts, layout, holdings, organization, administration, and physical structure of any of these places.

But, yet today, there is still a Great Library in Alexandria, Egypt.

It is called the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (which is Latin for Library of Alexandria).

It is a memorial of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity and was built in an attempt to rekindle the brilliance and awe that the ancient library embodied.

The size of the new library is immense.  It has shelf space for more than eight million books and a main reading room on eleven stepped  levels.

Just as the ancient library attempted to collect all the knowledge in the world, today’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina has the only existing copy and external backup of the entire World Wide Web.

Most every website ever published still exists in Alexandria, Egypt.

Anything you have online you want to forget about?

For more information about Alexandria