The archives of Kosovo and Albania store documents of particular historical value, witnessing developments over the centuries. The leaders of these institutions stress the importance of preserving, processing and digitizing archive materials, to make them more accessible to researchers and the public. So far, the Kosovo Archive has digitised about 11 million copies of documents, making up approximately 12 percent of the archive funds.
Archive documents are authentic evidence of the past. At the State Agency of Kosovo Archives, they say the preservation and processing of these materials enables scholars to investigate through original documents.
We possess 1437 documents, which is the manuscript of the time, and it’s also 1608. It’s a notial document that’s been selling since. So we also possess old documents, but the goal is to get as close to the citizen as possible, says Mehmet Xhemajli, executive director of A. SHAK’s.
Albania’s archives also store documents of importance for the history of the Albanian state and developments over the centuries.
The oldest document is one of the codices, the codicus of Corca, which is the century. 6 / 15 Few archives can boast of having such a precious and rare document, says Auron Rockaj, director general of Albania’s Archives.
In addition to document storage and systeming, the leaders of both institutions estimate digitalisation as an important process for storage and access to archive materials.
We’re the second or third state in the world for the amount of digitized archive funds, we’re getting across India by 50%, we’ve reached 25%, we get to the end of this year, at this rate. Keeping in mind that the best country in Europe has 8% digitized and the US has only 5%, Rokaj says.
We have reached about 11 million copies that we have digitized so far, by miles, because we have about 11km total in all of Kosovo archives, so it goes down to about 12% of the digitization of documents, Xhemajli says.
Through storage, processing and digitisation of documents, archives contribute to the protection of historical memory and to conveying documentary heritage to future generations.
Source Layer: RTKLive