Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has approved the appointment of political science professor and former diplomat Mostafa El-Feki as the new director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

He will replace Ismail Serag El-Din, who has held the position since the library's inauguration in 2002.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a national venue for arts and culture.

El-Feki is a political science professor who served as the president of the British University in Egypt from 2005 to 2008.

Before that, he taught at the American University in Cairo.

He worked as secretary for information to former president Hosni Mubarak from 1985 to 1992.

El-Feki was the head of the foreign relations committee in the Shura Council in the 1990s, and was a member of the Supreme Council for Policies of Mubarak's ruling party and now dissolved National Democratic Party in the early 2000s.

He is a frequent op-ed contributor to Al-Ahram daily newspaper and London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, as well as Al-Masry Al-Youm.

El-Feki has also authored several books, including The Absent Vision: Revival of Arab Nationalist Thought.

He held several diplomatic posts, including acting as Egypt's envoy to Austria in the 1990s and Egypt's representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency, also in the 1990s.

He has received several orders of merit from several European states, as well as Egypt's State Merit Prize in Social Sciences. 

Source: Ahram online