The First Library in The World

Ashurbanipal became the world's first library in Assyria. This library which is now known as The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, has a collection of thousands of clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds (royal inscriptions, chronicles, mythological and religious texts, contracts, royal grants and decrees, royal letters, assorted administrative documents, and even what would be today called classified documents, reports from spies, ambassadors, etc.)

The written collections were practised as old as civilization itself. About 30,000 clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia date back more than 5,000 years. Archeologists have uncovered papyrus scrolls from 1300-1200bc in the ancient Egyptian cities of Amarna and Thebes and thousands of clay tablets in the palace of King Sennacherib, Assyrian ruler from 704-681bc, at Nineveh, his capital city. More evidence were found with the discovery of the personal collection of Sennacherib's grandson, King Ashurbanipal.

The Great Library of Alexandria, a public library open to those with the proper scholarly and literary qualifications, founded about 300  B.C. It was Demetrius who suggested setting up a universal library to hold copies of all the books in the world. Egypt King Ptolemy I and his successors wanted to understand the people under their rule and provide Latin, Buddhist, Persian, Hebrew, and Egyptian works - translated into Greek. These works were kept in the library.

( Simplified from wiki.answers.com )