After more than 100 years, Albania has finally built a modern infrastructure for collection, preservation and maintenance of the records and archival materials with the Central State Archive building being recently rejuvenated to deliver best archival storage standards. Until recently, the Central Archive lacked proper storage infrastructure, capacities and standards for preservation of the archival fund. The new Central Archive building, where the state’s memory and biography is preserved, meets best required standards the archival material preservation and maintenance.

Prime Minister Edi Rama today visited the newly renovated premises and storage infrastructure of the Central State Archive, located in Shkoze, Tirana, with the head of the institution, Ardit Bido, noting “the change is like night and day in terms of quality and standards for preservation of the archival materials and records.”

“The new storage premises of archival documentation have changed like night and day in terms of the way archival records and documents will be now preserved. When the archive was first built, there was no storage environment and the military units were engaged in 1990 in arrangement of paper-based records. The Albanian government has already made a major investment in the field of archives because unless the document is preserved, we can hardly say anything else in terms of the seriousness of a state,” Bido said.

The Premier also visited the old State Archive building, where the archival documents were previously preserved. The Premier stated “it is terrible how the archival documents have been preserved.”

“It is terrible how for decades on end the documented memory of the Albanian land from the 6th century and onwards was preserved in such buildings that fail to meet any criteria,” the Director of the Central State Archives went on saying.

With the recent transformation, the archival documents are not only preserved, but also protected from fire or moisture in accordance with any European standards. The infrastructure modernization project will continue next year with the reconstruction of two more buildings and the control systems.