The library, founded sometime between 548 and 565, is the oldest continuously operating library in the world.[28] The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library.[29] It contains Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac, Georgian, Arabic, Ethiopic/Ge‘ez, Latin, Armenian, Church Slavonic, and Caucasian Albanian[30] manuscripts and books, and very rare Hebrew Language,[31] some Coptic books.[8]