#tough librarians

Philips’ article surrounds a major intellectual center during the Hellenistic period, the Library of Alexandria. The article questions weather it truly is a library in the sense of the word today, and dives into deep analysis in an attempt to answer that question. The article describes that the library was founded by Alexander after he was inspired by the library at Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. He translated the many sources he found there into Greek and established the Library of Alexandria afterward, indicating that he wanted his empire to be multi-cultural. The article also describes how it was that the library collected its many sources. Though many sources came with Alexander’s conquests or through fair purchase, the library also partook in what some might call immoral behavior. One story claims that the library borrowed official versions of plays written by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus from Athens and gave Athens a very large sum of money as a promise that they would return them. However, the library had copies made of the plays and returned the copies to Athens, sacrificing the money. This shows the importance the library held for knowledge, particularly Greek sources of knowledge. Ships coming into the ports of Alexandria were often stripped of books they were carrying and given to the library as well. However, the Library did all of these things for the sake of the people around it. It’s keepers kept Alexander’s vision of a multi-cultural center of information in mind, and benefited greatly the city and community of Alexandria, turning it into a flourishing intellectual center. By collecting all of these sources, regardless of how, to benefit the community, the author decides that the Library of Alexandria was indeed a library by the definition we hold today.