Fighting Facts and Figures

In late 2002, millennia after its inspiration was destroyed by fire, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened its doors near the original site of ancient Egypt’s Library of Alexandria. The new institution launched with the heady goal of matching its predecessor’s standing as the ultimate source of knowledge in its time. The project came with controversy, both for its $220-million price tag and relatively modest collection of 500,000 volumes. It’s ironic, then, that Wikipedia, another contender to be the ancient library’s modern-day successor, debuted almost two years earlier, on January 15, 2001, with no controversy and only a paltry 600 articles generated in its first month

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