اقرأ باللغة العربية I just had the opportunity to take part in an intensive two-day roundtable seminar at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina along with a select group of Egyptian intellectuals including the library's new director, the encyclopaedic Mustafa El-Feki, who recently succeeded the first director, Ismail Serageldin, who had been in charge of the library since its founding 15 years ago. The central theme of the event was the Bibliotheca's future role and challenges. In the course of some lively and fruitful exchanges, participants differed on a crucial issue: the relationship between this venerable institution and domestic affairs and current political concerns, above all. Some felt that the library should serve as a forum for studying, discussing and helping to resolve national issues and problems, whereas others held that, as an international centre for the dissemination of knowledge and enlightenment, the Bibliotheca should avoid becoming embroiled in domestic debates so that it can remain focussed on its role in the service of world thought. Personally, I am inclined to the latter view. I, too, believe that the library should remain above the fray and to confine itself to contributing universal or regional perspectives to such central issues as terrorism, education, development and freedom of thought. Consistent with this more elevated and panoramic vantage point, the activities and events that the library organises to address such issues would work to bring together world figures reputed for their culture and sophistication, creativity and ingenuity, experience and expertise, and for the wealth of their contributions to the realms of human knowledge and ideas. It is also important for the library to ensure its independence from all types of domestic pressures and influences. It needs to preserve a distance from the government and ruling authorities so as to remain true to its legacy and role as an institution devoted to the advancement of the human intellect. This tradition was established in antiquity. The original Library of Alexandria began as a forum for more than 100 ancient scholars in the core disciplines of the humanities: “poetry, the arts, geometry and literature”. Eventually, botanical gardens, a zoo and an autopsy theatre were added to facilitate study and research in other branches of science. The library was subject to the authority of scholars and scientists, rather than to that of local or imperial rulers. In fact, since the famous library was re-established 15 years ago, Egypt's presidents, from Hosny Mubarak to Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, have regarded it as an independent national institution dedicated to the performance of its duties towards the Egyptian people and human civilisation. It is noteworthy that the Bibliotheca has 12 former heads-of-state on its board of trustees who offer their services voluntarily with no material return. A tour of the Bibliotheca, the many services and facilities it offers as an intellectual and cultural organisation, and the many projects and activities it performs in the fields of educational reform, fighting extremist thought and terrorism and furthering human development so as to serve Egyptian needs from a global perspective lends additional weight to my view. The Bibliotheca complex houses nine sectors, 15 research centres, four museums, 11 permanent exhibitions, a planetarium, a linguistics research centre, a special studies information technology centre and other research centres. It organises and sponsors innumerable projects and it contains one of the most sophisticated digital labs in the world, digital technology being where the future lies. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the only library in the world that has a “supercomputer” unrivalled in the Arab world apart from that in Saudi Arabia. Capable of processing at 11.8 teraflops, enabling researchers to perform up to thousands of billions of operations in a second, the computer is an invaluable instrument for research and scientific research development. In the course of a tour, you will note that the staffing structure of the Bibliotheca rests primarily on youth. The average age of employees is 31 and only two per cent are over 50. Perhaps this is one of the secrets as to why the Bibliotheca chairs the Executive Council of the World Digital Library (WDL), a project of the US Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO), and in cooperation with more than 200 libraries and similar institutions around the world. As for the jewel in the Bibliotheca's crown, it is undoubtedly the Manuscripts Centre. Featuring the best manuscripts restoration laboratory in the world, the centre is dedicated to such projects as the repair of invaluable manuscripts from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The centre also plans to launch a new project next year in its cataloguing and verification unit, entailing the documentation of all inscriptions in Syria. Another centrepiece in the Bibliotheca's forward-looking vision is its Centre for Special Studies and Programmes (CSSP), which acts as a kind of virtual centre that links up scholars from around the world and hosts conferences every two years attended by thousands of students in cyberspace. Also affiliated with the Bibliotheca is the Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat), one of the major achievements of which was the digitalisation of the important Napoleonic era work, Le Description de l'Egypte, which has been made accessible to the public free-of-charge via the Internet. Other centres include the Centre for Democracy and Social Peace Studies (CDSPS), the Centre for Environmental Studies (CES) and a centre for computer languages. Perhaps one of the Bibliotheca's most important projects with young people in mind is the work it is doing to reproduce and republish the seminal works from the era of the Arab/Islamic enlightenment. Far too many Arab youths are unfamiliar with the names of such pioneering 19th and 20th century thinkers as Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, Ali Abdel-Razek and Abdel-Rahman Al-Kawakbi. The project has drawn up a list of over 100 major works for reproduction in accordance with a philosophy for supplying the original text in a manner that makes it more accessible to readers. The project is being carried out by a network of young scholars and researchers interested in these works and in the ideas of the Arab/Islamic awakening, in general, under the supervision of a committee made up of some of the foremost scholars in the field. Some participants in the roundtable suggested establishing branches of the Bibliotheca in other governorates. I, personally, was opposed to the idea because the library, ever since the dawn if its history, radiated its light from its location on the coast of Alexandria. There is no reason to dissipate the beam. It is strong and powerful enough to reach everyone everywhere who aspires to knowledge and wishes to take part of the world of ideas, especially given the amazing developments in communications technology and the Bibliotheca's sophisticated technological infrastructure. With a million visitors a year in person, the Bibliotheca's site is visited by 2.6 million people a day, or about a billion a year, 55 per cent of whom are young people. I believe that if there is one role that the library can play in the service of Egypt it is to serve as a bridge between Egyptian thought and global thought. Its substance would be made up of the books, documents and manuscripts it houses; the conferences, dialogues and seminars it sponsors; and its many publications. This authentically Egyptian contribution to world thought will work to break all forms of isolation and insularism. But to perform this role optimally, the library must safeguard its independence and maintain the necessary distances between it and any ruling political order in Egypt, whether good or bad. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina needs to keep its distance from all that so that its image is not affected, adversely or otherwise, by the practices of any government, regime or ruling authority. That way the famous Alexandrian landmark can remain a vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge and ideas, radiate the substance of enlightenment and, through its invaluable contributions to the universal assets of mankind, resume its place as an international scholastic hub and a universal humanitarian beacon.
