[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4239-4240]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 MINNESOTA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I am here today with my distinguished 
colleague, the senior Senator from Minnesota. It is a very special and 
exciting occasion for us to talk about three national championship 
teams in Minnesota: the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey 
team won the men's national championship for the first time in 23 years 
last Saturday night. It was one in which over 19,000 fans in St. Paul's 
Excel Center were able to enjoy. I think about 19,002 of them were 
Minnesota fans. But the University of Maine put on a spirited contest.
  We are very fortunate that the one North Dakotan on the team, a non-
Minnesota man, scored the winning goal in overtime to lead Minnesota to 
the national championship.
  Also, we are delighted that the University of Minnesota Duluth 
women's hockey team was also in the national championship for the 
second consecutive year--the only winner of that tournament--which has 
now been held for 2 years--in the history of this country. We are very 
proud of their accomplishment as well.
  We are ideally constituted because I am a hockey player from high 
school and college, and my distinguished colleague is a member of the 
Wrestling Hall of Fame in the United States. So he is going to carry on 
the honors for the next resolution. I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will be very brief. Senator Dayton 
talked about the men's hockey team, the University of Minnesota, the 
Gophers winning the NCAA championship which, as my colleague said, I 
think was the first time in 23 years; then the University of Minnesota 
Duluth, second straight year; and then the University of Minnesota 
wrestling team also won the NCAA championship for the second straight 
year as well.
  Senator Dayton and I will have a chance to send those resolutions 
back home. We want to congratulate everybody. I think everybody in 
Minnesota is very proud of these three teams. In one winter, there were 
three NCAA championships: men's hockey, women's hockey, and wrestling.
  I say to Senator Dayton, I actually do have a 5-hour speech I want to 
give about the importance of wrestling, but I will not do it tonight.

              REVIVAL OF THE ANCIENT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, on April 23, in Alexandria, Egypt, the 
Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) will be formally and 
joyfully inaugurated. This is a signal event in the history of world 
culture. The new library has been built on the site of the ancient 
Library of Alexandria, not in imitation of its renowned predecessor but 
rather, as its first Chief Librarian, Dr. Ismail Seragaldin, has 
observed, to recapture the spirit and emulate the ideals, scholarship 
and research of the Ancient Library. It is also, significantly, the 
first major library to open anywhere in the world in the third 
millennium.
  From the time of its establishment in the 4th century B.C.E. until 
its destruction by fire some 1,600 years ago, the Ancient Library stood 
as a preeminent center of learning. It brought together the Pharaonic 
and Hellenistic cultures, reflecting and reinforcing Egypt's pivotal 
role as a cradle of civilization. Alexandria was a magnificent city, a 
great center of both commerce and intellectual endeavor, and the 
library was its anchor indeed, the library was emblematic of the city. 
With its collection of some 700,000 manuscripts and its phalanx of 
scholars, Euclid and Archimedes among them, it was also, effectively, 
the world's first university. And although the library was lost many 
centuries ago, it has remained a lustrous symbol of scholarship and 
intellectual inquiry.
   A clear and steady vision, intense dedication, and many years of 
planning and hard work have brought the new library into being. In 
1990, under the leadership of Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, a group of 
distinguished men and women from many different countries came together 
to sign the Aswan Declaration for the Revival of the Ancient Library of 
Alexandria, which proclaimed the Library's mission to be, in part, to 
``bear witness to an original undertaking that, in embracing the 
totality and diversity of human experience, became the matrix for a new 
spirit of critical inquiry, for a heightened perception of knowledge as 
a collaborative process.'' Now, 12 years after the signing of the Aswan 
Declaration, the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a reality. It will 
provide scholars and researchers with unique collections and facilities 
focusing on the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Alexandria as well 
as on contemporary subjects. It will

[[Page 4240]]

house resource materials in science and technology to assist in studies 
of Egypt and the Mediterranean region, and it will sponsor studies of 
the region's historical and cultural heritage. At the same time, it 
will serve as a major depository library, and it will take its place 
alongside the world's major scholarly institutions, like the Library of 
Congress, in using technology to make available to scholars the whole 
range of information resources, wherever they may be found.
  The stunning architectural design of the building that houses the 
library is congruent with the library's mission. It is, as Mrs. Mubarak 
has put it, ``a great dazzling building,'' ``a fourth pyramid,'' its 
``inclined round shape similar to the sun rising at dawn.'' Yet it is 
simple in concept: a circle sloping toward the Mediterranean Sea, 
partly submerged in water. A wall of Aswan granite, with calligraphy 
representing inscriptions from the world's civilizations, surrounds the 
building, which is connected to Alexandria's famous Corniche by an 
elevated passageway.
  This magnificent project could not have been completed without the 
generous support and leadership of President Hosni Mubarak, Mrs. 
Suzanne Mubarak, and the Egyptian people, and it has benefited 
enormously from the support of UNESCO, of many governments and non-
governmental organizations, and of committed men and women around the 
world. I am especially pleased that the sister-city partnership joining 
Baltimore and Alexandria has contributed to the library through a 
committee called the Baltimore Friends of Bibliotheca Alexandrina; 
under the chairmanship of Dr. Raouf Boules, who came to this country 
from Alexandria and who serves as Assistant Dean of the College of 
Science and Mathematics at Towson University in Maryland, the committee 
has been very successful in collecting books and raising funds for the 
Library.
  The Ancient Library of Alexandria ``was and is one of the greatest 
and most inspiring creations of the human intellect,'' as Mrs. Mubarak 
has observed. The New Library of Alexandria will surely carry forward 
that tradition. On the day of its inauguration we celebrate the New 
Library, we pay tribute to those who have made its establishment 
possible, and we express deep gratitude for the contributions it will 
surely make to greater knowledge and understanding worldwide.

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