ABSTRACT
The library was the first and greatest of its kind in the world. Its vast holdings, and its cataloguing system developed by successive librarians made it the forerunner and inspiration for all future libraries and gatherings of information in the West. Like Wikipedia, this was a project with the ambition to collect the entire world's knowledge together in one place. This chapter examines the great library of Alexandria has always been the subject of much ill-supported supposition and wishful thinking. Its image, as a repository for all the knowledge of the known world, and as research centre for groups of dedicated scholars, is irresistibly attractive, but unfortunately the sources available to substantiate this image are highly fragmentary, and often contradictory. The intention behind the library was complete coverage of everything written in Greek, ranging from epic poetry and drama to humble cookery books, and there was also to be a search for foreign literature which could be translated into Greek.
