The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 10, March 9, 2003, Article 6

NEW LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

  NBS Board member Joel Orosz spotted an interesting
  article in The New York Times of March 1, 2003.
  The article by Robert F. Woth is titled, "Online Library
  Wants It All, Every Book"

  "The legendary library of Alexandria boasted that it had a
  copy of virtually every known manuscript in the ancient
  world. This bibliophile's fantasy in Egypt's largest port
  city vanished, probably in a fire, more than a thousand
  years ago. But the dream of collecting every one of the
  world's books has been revived in a new arena: online.

  The directors of the new Alexandria Library, which
  christened a steel and glass structure with 250,000 books
  in October, have joined forces with an American artist and
  software engineers in an ambitious effort to make virtually
  all of the world's books available at a mouse click. Much
  as the ancient library nurtured Archimedes and Euclid, the
  new Web venture also hopes to connect scholars and
  students around the world.

  Of course, many libraries already provide access to
  hundreds or even thousands of electronic books. But the
  ambitions of the Alexandria Library appear to surpass those
  of its rivals. Its directors hope to link the world's other
  major digital archives and to make the books more
  accessible than ever with new software."

  "The library has scanned only about 100,000 pages of its
  own material, mostly medieval Arabic texts, Mr. Serageldin
  said. But it has embarked on a plan to digitize thousands
  of books over the next several years, most of them Arabic
  texts, with French and English translations, he said. Other
  works are scheduled to be scanned elsewhere in Africa,
  including a whole library of crumbling medieval manuscripts
  in a monastery in Timbuktu in Mali, Mr. Serageldin said.

  The library will also have access to one million books that
  are now being scanned by Carnegie Mellon University, which
  is creating its own vast digital archive and is one of
  Alexandria's partners."

  "And putting everything in one place is no longer as risky
  as it was in the predigital era, said Brewster Kahle, the
  founder of the Internet Archive. "One lesson of the
  original Library of Alexandria," he said, "is don't just
  have one copy."

  For the full text of the article, see:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/01ALEX.html?ex=1047785767&ei=1&en=c091ce1307d5404d

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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