 | 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: 1) A Library that can hold millions of books, An Internet Archive, A Planetarium, Four art galleries for temporary exhibitions and A Conference Center for thousands of persons 2) Six specialized libraries for (i) Arts, multimedia and audio-visual materials, (ii) the visually impaired, (iii) children, (iv) the young, (v) microforms, and (vi) rare books and special collections 3) Four Museums for (i) Antiquities, (ii) Manuscripts, (iii) Sadat and (iv) the History of Science 4) 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. 5) 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. 6) Eight academic research centers: (i) Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center (Alex-Med), (ii) Arts Center, (iii) Calligraphy Center, (iv) Center for Special Studies and Programs (CSSP), (v) International School of Information Studies (ISIS), (vi) Manuscript Center, (vii) Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat, located in Cairo), and (viii) Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies. 7) Nine permanent exhibitions covering (i) Impressions of Alexandria: The Awad Collection, (ii) The World of Shadi Abdel Salam, (iii) Arabic Calligraphy, (iv) The History of Printing, (v) The Artist’s Book, (vi) Arab-Muslim Medieval Instruments of Astronomy and Science, (vii) Mohie El Din Hussein: A Creative Journey, (viii) Abdel Salam Eid, and (ix) Raaya El-Nimr and Abdel-Ghani Abou El-Enein. 8) A Dialogue Forum which provides opportunities for the meeting of, and discussions with 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. |
