George Washington University and the World Bank are sponsoring a series of publishing workshops for the developing world. OBS serves as co-presenter at this spring’s workshop in Egypt, and learns much about the world of Arab publishing from participants at the Library of Alexandria, site of the oldest known library on the planet. It was here that Alexander the Great sought to gather all the recorded knowledge of the world of his time. While the original library was burned by Caesar, today’s Library is a stunning architectural showpiece.

We discuss differences between our countries’ publishing systems, highlighting areas such as editorial and production processes to authenticate information as true, and explore the promise of technical advances such as The Espresso Book Machine donated to the Library by the World Bank, which can download files for any book, then print and bind that book in a matter of minutes. We also explore open-source and Web 2.0 solutions to answer publishers’ needs to reach their global markets.