About the Library

The New Library of Alexandria, the New Bibliotheca Alexandrina is dedicated to recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship of the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It is much more than a library. It contains:

• A Library that can hold millions of books.
• An Internet Archive
• Six specialized libraries for
  1. Arts, multimedia and audio-visual materials,
  2. the visually impaired,
  3. children,
  4. the young,
  5. microforms, and
  6. rare books and special collections
• Four Museums for
  
  1. Antiquities,
  2. Manuscripts,
  3. Sadat and
  4. the History of Science
• A Planetarium
• An Exploratorium for children’s exposure to science (ALEXploratorium)
• Culturama: a cultural panorama over nine screens, the first ever patented 9-projector interactive system. Winner of many awards, the Culturama, developed by CULTNAT, allows the presentation of a wealth of data layers, where the presenter can click on an item and go to a new level of detail. It is a remarkably informative and attractive multi-media presentation of Egypt’s heritage across 5000 years of history to these modern times, with highlights and examples of Ancient Egyptian and Coptic/Muslim heritage.
• VISTA (The Virtual Immersive Science and Technology Applications system) is an interactive Virtual Reality environment, allowing researchers to transform two-dimensional data sets into 3-D simulations, and to step inside them. A practical tool of visualization during research, VISTA helps researchers to simulate the behavior of natural or human-engineered systems, instead of merely observing a system or building a physical model.
• Eight academic research centers:
  
  1. Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center (Alex-Med),
  2. Arts Center,
  3. Calligraphy Center,
  4. Center for Special Studies and Programs (CSSP),
  5. International School of Information Studies (ISIS),
  6. Manuscript Center,
  7. Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat, located in Cairo), and
  8. Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies.
• Fifteen permanent exhibitions covering
  1. Impressions of Alexandria: The Awad Collection,
  2. The World of Shadi Abdel Salam,
  3. Arabic Calligraphy,
  4. The History of Printing,
  5. Arab-Muslim Medieval Instruments of Astronomy and Science (Star Riders), and the Permanent Exhibitions of Selections of Contemporary Egyptian Art:
  6. The Artist’s Book,
  7. Mohie El Din Hussein: A Creative Journey,
  8. Abdel Salam Eid,
  9. The Raaya El-Nimr and Abdel-Ghani Abou El-Enein Collection Arab Folk Art,
  10. Seif and Adham Wanly: Motion and Art,
  11. Selected Artworks of Adam Henin,
  12. Selected Artworks of Ahmed Abdel-Wahab,
  13. Selected Artworks of Hamed Saeed,
  14. Selected Artworks of Hassan Soliman, and
  15. Sculpture.
• Four art galleries for temporary exhibitions
• A Conference Center for thousands of persons
• A Dialogue Forum which provides opportunities for the meeting of thinkers, authors and writers to discuss various salient issues affecting modern societies. The Arab Reform Forum was the product of the first Arab Reform Conference organized in 2004.
   

  The New Library of Alexandria also hosts a number of institutions:

  The number is growing and the Library of Alexandria is becoming the nerve center of many international and regional networks.
  

  • The Academia Bibliotheca Alexandrinae (ABA)
  • Arabic Society for Ethics in Science & Technology (ASEST)
  • The Anna Lindh Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures, the first Euro–Med foundation based outside Europe
  • The Center for Peace and Democracy Studies (CPDS)
  • The HCM Medical Research project (located in Shallalat premises)
  • The Jean-René Dupuy Center for Law and Development
  • The Arab Regiona l Office of the Academy of Science for the Developing World (ARO-TWAS)
  • The International Federation for Library Associations (IFLA) Regional Office
  • The Secretariat of the Arab National Commissions of UNESCO
  • The Middle Eastern and North African Network for Environmental Economics (MENANEE)
  • The Arab Network for Women in Science and Technology (ANWST)

Today, this vast complex is a reality
receiving about 1.5 million visitors a year