Around 112 A.D. the multi-use building complex was completed by Emperor Trajan in the city of Rome.
It consisted of plazas, markets, and religious temples as well as a library.
Two separate structures housed the library, one for works in Latin, and one for works in Greek and each included large central reading chambers and two levels of bookshelf-lined alcoves containing about 20,000 scrolls.
Around 120 A.D. the son of the Roman consul Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus completed a memorial library to his father in Ephesus (modern-day Turkey).
The building featured four statues representing Wisdom, Virtue, Intelligence, and Knowledge.
In the mid-19th century, archaeologists found the ruins of the world's oldest known library in Nineveh (modern-day Iraq).
It dates back to the 7th century B.C and includes 30,000 cuneiform tablets, mostly containing archival documents, religious incantations and scholarly texts.