Library of Alexandria has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result November 15, 2018 Good article nominee Listed
	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on December 16, 2018. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Eratosthenes, the head librarian of the Library of Alexandria, calculated the circumference of the earth with remarkable accuracy in the third century BC?

This  level-4 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Ancient Egypt Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ancient Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egyptological subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ancient EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject Ancient EgyptTemplate:WikiProject Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list: Needed articles. We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have. Cleanup. To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates? Standardize the Chronology. A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563) Stub sorting Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . . Data sorting. This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library. Classical Greece and Rome Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Egypt High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egypt on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject EgyptTemplate:WikiProject EgyptEgypt High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Libraries High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Libraries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Libraries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LibrariesWikipedia:WikiProject LibrariesTemplate:WikiProject LibrariesLibraries High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Rome Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Rome, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the city of Rome and ancient Roman history on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RomeWikipedia:WikiProject RomeTemplate:WikiProject RomeRome Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Architecture Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Dear authors, Thank you for this great information about the world's biggest library in ancient world, but it seems The library of Alexandria was not world's biggest library. It was Takshila (that time in Bharat(India)) followed by two more libraries which had at least 9 times the collections as that possessed by Alexandria. I just wanted to share this information. Please feel free to share the feedbacks.

Best

Hello @A. Parrot, I don't think that in my revision, we were patently stating that Theodosius was the one who destroyed the library. Instead, we presented a historian's perspective on what he considered probable. Additionally, the sources seemed appropriate to me.

Regarding the section title "Arabic sources on Muslim invasion," I find it somewhat inaccurate since many of the sources did not seem to be exclusively Arabic. The term "Arab invasion" would be more relevant and accurate. Therefore, I am considering updating the section name and the associated wikilink accordingly, if that’s alright. StarkReport (talk) 22:45, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding sourcing, I was mostly concerned about the Arab News source; its statement about Theodosius relied on D. P. Singhal, whose qualifications I'm uncertain of. In any case, a mention of Theodosius seems to be misplaced here. The existing article text treats it as the consensus that the library no longer existed in its original location in Theodosius' time, so the case for blaming him rests on the idea that 1. some of the library's collection was relocated to the Serapeum and 2. Theodosius was to blame for the Serapeum's destruction. Those topics are already extensively discussed in the section that follows the one where you were adding your text.

If we were to add anything more about why scholars disbelieve the story about the Arab conquest, I would favor elaborating on the reasons for their skepticism—e.g., that John Philoponus was almost certainly dead by the time of the conquest. A. Parrot (talk) 23:43, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, so would this work: "Additionally, Roy MacLeod notes that the story first appears 500 years after the conquest, and John Philoponus was likely deceased by then, indicating that the tale lacks historical credibility."^[1] right after the quote of Diana Delia. @A. Parrot? StarkReport (talk) 04:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited in a tweaked version of your suggestion. A. Parrot (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there no information about who built the library and when? In the article there seems to be a lot of question about who came up with the plans and when it was built. Is there a way to get more solid knowledge on this kind of information? If not maybe reword the text on that part because there seems to be a lot of "maybe" and "probably" that take away from the article. Cturpen21 (talk) 00:42, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, there isn't. Ancient history always has "a lot of "maybe" and "probably". Johnbod (talk) 02:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]