Libraries abroad: Egyptian library merges modern technology with ancient relics

The former World Bank vice-president is director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) - Egypt's world's most celebrated library, built on its historical site in the city of Alexandria.

The 66-year-old Egyptian has become the first person in over 1,600 years to be officially named "Librarian of Alexandria."

The original Library of Alexandria, founded in 288 B.C., housed hundreds of thousands of scrolls by some of the greatest thinkers and writers of the ancient world. Drawn by this center of knowledge, scientists, mathematicians and poets from all cultures gravitated to Alexandria to study and exchange ideas.

But in 48 A.D. many of the ancient library's treasures were irrevocably lost after an accidental fire, and after falling into a gradual decline the once-famed library completely disappeared around 1,600 years ago, according to Biblioteca Alexandrina's Web site.

The library's main reading room is the largest in the world, covering 70,000 square meters over eleven cascading levels. Serageldin's favorite artifacts relate, unsurprisingly, to the first printing press transported to Egypt: "From such modest beginnings, knowledge exploded, newspapers appeared, modern debate took place, translation movement occurred, and all of the modernization of Egypt started."

"The ancient library tried to have all the written books in the world," he explained. "Well, we have the digital memory of humanity by maintaining a complete copy of the Internet archive. And sooner or later other books will migrate to digital form."

Serageldin points out the extent of the library's other digital resources - such as its Virtual Reality Environment, an immersive system that allows researchers to transform two-dimensional data sets into 3-D simulations -  and to step inside them.