The major disadvantage of papyrus, otherwise an excellent medium for information storage, is its susceptibility to damp. Even in a well-curated collection, texts need to be recopied after a generation or two. The sheer size of the Alexandrian library militated against its survival. As with so many of the libraries we will meet in this book, neglect was a much more potent enemy than war or malice.

Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile Hist…, loc. 58