One of Tirana’s most interesting book spaces has been most recently restored and returned to the book readers and friends after having fallen into oblivion and a state of completely forgotten over many years. The newest Sotir Kolea book centre, once known as the capital’s old library, has been returned to the readers and book lovers after sustaining damages due to the devastating earthquake almost four years ago. The new centre houses a collection of rare books, many of them part of personal libraries confiscated during Albania’s past communist regime.

This whole treasure is now made available to the public in a totally reconstructed building under an Albanian government investment project and the European Union assistance through its EU4Culture programme. 

Prime Minister Edi Rama toured the new book centre accompanied by the Minister of Culture Elva Margariti and the National Library Director Piro Misha.

Providing a brief outline of the project, Culture Minister Margatiti said that the Sotir Kolea book centre restores not only a priceless part of the country’s cultural heritage, but it will also house a modern multifunctional centre, serving researchers and primarily the youth.

“The new centre has been named after Sotir Kolea and it has been restored to the public and the city. The building was affected by the earthquake. This space will serve all foreign researchers, Albanian students and everyone else. It was the aftermath of the earthquake that we started mulling investment plans. The library staff totally dedicated to books arranging during the long pandemic lockdown period. Work was underway about the restoration project through the state budget funding, while the European Union Delegation has assisted us by providing high-quality, state-of-the-art equipment.

The centre is now restored into a space boasting unique and rare books, unexplored books, as well as a space for young people, with digital access and state-of-the-art digital equipment. This is now a space that everyone in Tirana had almost forgotten it ever existed and is now fully operational. There are still a large number of books that were previously housed here. We have arranged the old and new books in a completely new way. This is the newest modern approach to accessing the book and we have tried to recover as much space as possible,” Margariti said.

Sotir Kolea centre has been named after a prominent personality of the Albanian culture, who served as National Library Director during the period 1928-1937, made a special contribution to laying the foundations of librarianship in Albania, as well as to the enrichment of library collections with Albanian materials.