And unlike their predecessors, visitors to the new library will be able to pursue their scholarship in comfort; the facility’s equipment is being provided by Carrier Corporation (Syracuse, NY, www.carrier.com). Miraco-Carrier supplied the system for Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which was scheduled to open to the public last month. The cooling system provides a total of 14,000 tons of cooling and is located in a basement mechanical room of the 11-floor library.

Located where Euclid taught geometry centuries ago, the 743,000-sq-ft building will accommodate up to 8 million volumes; house hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, audio tapes, CDs, and videotapes; and will serve as a center for research into the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Eastern Mediterranean. It also includes a 3,200-person conference center, a science museum, planetarium, and a calligraphy institute. The Ptolemies founded the original Bibilotheca Alexandrina around 300 BC, making the city one of the ancient centers of academia; however, the collections and volumes of the original library were destroyed by fire 1,600 years ago.