The library comprised a "peripatos" (walk), gardens, a room for shared dining, a reading room, lecture halls and meeting rooms. However, the exact layout is not known. This model's influence may still be seen today in the layout of university campuses. The library itself is known to have had an acquisitions department (possibly built near the stacks, or for utility closer to the harbour), and a cataloguing department. The hall contained shelves for the collections of scrolls (as the books were at this time on papyrus scrolls), known as "bibliothekai" ("βιβλιοθῆκαι"). It was rumored that carved into the wall above the shelves, a famous inscription read: "The place of the cure of the soul."
It was the first known library to gather a serious collection of books from beyond its country's borders. The Library was charged with collecting all the world's knowledge. It did so through an aggressive and well-funded royal mandate involving trips to the book fairs of Rhodes and Athens and a policy of pulling the books off every ship that came into port. They kept the original texts and made copies to send back to their owners. Alexandria, because of its man-made bidirectional port between the mainland and the Pharos island, welcomed trade from the East and West, and soon found itself the international hub for trade, as well as the leading producer of papyrus and, soon enough, books.
The library was also home to a host of international scholars. The library filled its stacks with new works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural history and other subjects. It was at the Library of Alexandria that the scientific method was first conceived and put into practice, and its empirical standards applied in serious textual criticism. As the same text often existed in several different versions, comparative textual criticism was crucial for ensuring their accuracy. Once ascertained, copies would then be made for scholars, royalty and wealthy bibliophiles the world over, this commerce bringing income to the library. The editors at the Library of Alexandria are especially well known for their work on Homeric texts. The more famous editors generally also held the title of head librarian. These included, among others,
Already famous in the ancient world, the library's collection became even more storied in later years. Papyrus scrolls comprised the collection, and although parchment codices were used predominantly as a more advanced writing material after 300 BC.
A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective for the library. Mark Antony supposedly gave Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls (taken from the great Library of Pergamum) for the library as a wedding gift. Carl Sagan, in his series , states that the library contained nearly one million scrolls, though other experts have estimated a smaller number. No index of the library survives, and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection may have been.
A perhaps exaggerated story concerns how the library's collection grew so large. By decree of Ptolemy III of Egypt, all visitors to the city were required to surrender all books and scrolls. Official scribes then swiftly copied these writings, some copies proving so precise that the originals were put into the library, and the copies delivered to the unsuspecting owners. This process also helped to create a reservoir of books in the relatively new city.
According to Galen, Ptolemy III requested permission from the Athenians to borrow the original scripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, for which the Athenians demanded the enormous amount of fifteen talents as guarantee. Ptolemy happily paid the fee but kept the original scripts for the library.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2002 near the site of the old library.
International Auxiliary Language Association
The International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA) was founded in 1924 to promote widespread study, discussion and publicity in the establishment of an international auxiliary language, together with research and experiment.
Although it was created to determine which auxiliary language was best suited for international communication, it eventually determined that none of them was up to the task and developed its own language, Interlingua. The IALA continued to publish materials in and about Interlingua until 1954.
Ubaldo Jiménez
Ubaldo Jiménez (born January 22, 1984) is a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles. He became the first pitcher for the Colorado Rockies to throw a no-hitter on April 17, 2010. He is from the Dominican Republic. In 2010, Jiménez was the starting National League pitcher at the MLB All-Star Game, which the National League won.
JavaScript engine
A JavaScript engine is a program that runs JavaScript code. Web Browsers often have a JavaScript engine. It can also be used outside of web browsers, such as running services in Node.js or apps in the electron framework.
JavaScript was originally created as a scripting language to allow web pages to have changing, or dynamic, elements. Early Javascript engines were created as interpreters, programs that simply read the script and execute the instructions without analyzing it any more.
As JavaScript started being used more an more as a general-purpose language, execution speed, or how quickly the code is run, became more important for JavaScript engines. In response, many engines, such as V8 (Used in Chrome and Chromium) and SpiderMonkey (used in Firefox), started using Just-In-Time Compilation. In this method, it starts by compiling all of the code to optimized machine code, which is typically faster than interpretation, then running the result.
Upper Volta
Upper Volta was a territory belonging to France from 1919 to 1932 and later from 1947 to 1958. In 1958, Upper Volta became a republic. Until 1960, it was still part of the French Community. In 1960, Upper Volta gained independence from France. In 1984, it became the country now known as Burkina Faso.
Oxford spelling
Oxford spelling is the spelling found in the Oxford English Dictionary. One example would be "colour" instead of "color".
More exactly, Oxford spelling is the headwords used in their dictionaries. In the full entries other variations are listed.
Most people in Britain use spellings like "organise" and "realise", but Oxford spelling uses "organize" and "realize". Those alternatives are both correct in British English.
Chanelle Hayes
Chanelle Hayes (born 11 November 1987) is a British television personality and pop singer.
She was born in Styal prison, Cheshire. She was adopted and raised in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She has been active since 2007 when she left voluntarily left the Big Brother house in week 9. She has had a single entitled "I Want It" charted at number 63 in the UK, number 33 in Republic of Ireland, number 7 in Turkey and number 5 in Russia.
Hayes has modelled many times for Diva Corsets. She regularly appears in the media promoting the Michelle for George lingerie line. After leaving the big brother house, Hayes has been in numerous Lad's mags, such as nuts magazine and zoo magazine as a glamour model. In October 2011, Hayes appeared fully topless for the first time in Zoo magazine.
Hayes dated Middlesbrough football player Matthew Bates for several months in 2009. On 6 August 2009, Hayes was rushed to hospital after trying suicide by taking an overdose of paracetamol and red wine. On 20 January 2010, it was reported that she was expecting her first child with Bates, a boy. She gave birth to her son Blakely Hayes-Bates on 20 July 2010.
Hayes started dating Jack Tweed at the beginning of April 2010. She said they split on 1 July 2010.
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Riding of Yorkshire is a county in the English region called Yorkshire and the Humber in the north of England.
Daniel Inouye