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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters By Rania Khallaf 
Connecting to the past
Mrs Suzanne Mubarak last week called for the organising of an international media campaign to raise financial and material support for the Alexandria library project. Paying a follow-up visit to the construction site, Mrs Mubarak said the campaign should aim at providing government and non-governmental organisations with information about the scheme in order to garner support for it.
Mrs Mubarak, honorary chairwoman of an international committee sponsoring the project, described it as a "landmark of cultural and intellectual development."
The old library, built by Ptolemy Soter at the beginning of the third century BC, was destroyed by fire which ravaged Alexandria about 2,000 years ago. Since the 1970s, the government has been considering the idea of building a new library on the same site -- the Al-Shatbi section of the Alexandria coastline. In 1990, Mrs Mubarak hosted an international conference in Aswan that led to the signing of an agreement with UNESCO, which issued an international call to rally support for the project. The first phase of the project was completed in 1995 and the second and final phase will be finished by the end of this year.
Covering a 45,000 square metre area, the project's estimated construction costs will amount to $200 million. The library will include eight million printed books and volumes, 50,000 audio-visual items, 50,000 multi-media sources and 50,000 maps. It will also be connected through the Internet with the worldwide web.
Mrs Mubarak said that the library should be surrounded by large green areas to "underline its connection to the past and its openness to the future." She expressed happiness with the progress of work, declaring that several kings and presidents would be invited to an international opening ceremony.
The building is circular, with special sections for the blind and for young people, and the library will house institutes for information, documentation and calligraphy as well as a museum and an international conference centre. The outer, circular wall will be covered with granite from Aswan and engraved with symbols representing the languages of various ancient civilisations.
In response to the call issued by UNESCO, Spain has provided microfilms and France took care of the first stage of an information system. Turkey and Germany have offered a number of valuable volumes and the family of Alexandria's Greek poet Kavavis has provided a collection of his poems in his own handwriting.
