When Egyptian King Ptolemy I built the Bibliotheca Alexandrina nearly 2,300 years ago, the great library became the intellectual center of the ancient world. Ptolemy hoped to gather as much human knowledge as possible. Even ships anchored in the port were impounded until all the manuscripts they contained could be copied. World leaders lent their scrolls for duplication, and library officials traveled far and wide to purchase entire collections. Meanwhile, dutiful scribes hand-copied the library's awesome collection, which eventually grew to as many as 700,000 scrolls.
Brewster Kahle is a modern-day Ptolemy: he wants to ensure universal access to all human knowledge. And now he thinks that goal is within our grasp. In fact, his web site has already stored 55 billion web pages. Yes, that's BILLIONS of web pages.
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