General Directorate of Archives

The General Directorate of Archives is the national archive of the Republic of Albania, located in Tirana. Under the former control of the Party of Labour of Albania, the archives houses the papers of the former People's Socialist Republic of Albania, and papers that were held by citizens prior to the regime. Completely modernized to archival standards as of 2004, with help from the Swiss Federal Archives, the archives also houses the Codex Beratinus and the Codex Beratinus II.HistoryDuring the country's time as the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the collections and facilities fell into disrepair. Collections catalogues were written by hand, and the archives had no formal collection management system. Upon the fall of the regime, the archives were looted.In 1994, the archives was contacted by the Swiss Federal Archives, who offered aid in conserving collections and updating the facilities. For ten years, ending in 2004, the Swiss contributed 1.9 million Swiss francs to the archives. The archives also started to significantly expand their collections. The Swiss funds went to digitizing almost two million records from card catalogues and to create an online search system for the records.

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