Currently reading
Bibliotheca Alexandrina - Resurrecting the Fabled Library of Alexandria
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina - financed by the Egyptian Ministry of Education, the richer Arab countries and UNESCO, designed by a Norwegian firm and opened in 2002 on the former site of the palaces of the Ptolemies - has a capacity of 8,000,000 volumes and the goal of reviving the spirit of the ancient Library of Alexandria, which was for centuries the most important library and center for research in the Greco-Roman world.
The library's collection is trilingual - Arabic, English, and French - and in 2010 the Bibliothèque Nationale de France donated a half million volumes, making the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the sixth-largest Francophone library in the world.
The monstrous main reading room is, at 70,000 square meters, the largest in the world. I wouldn't want to read there, but I would love to see it. Let's hope this underfunded prestige project succeeds.
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