TIRANA, August 19 /ATA/ August 19 is the World Photography Day.
On this day, the General Directorate of Archives highlighted the work carried out to revolutionize the Photo Library under its control, through the digitization of the services provided.
The Photo Library of the Central State Archive is a unit created with photographs collected over the years since the establishment of the Archive, as well as from various donations. Today, this Photo Library counts about 135,000 original photographs. Of them, about 41,000 photographs belong to the political, social and cultural activity of Albanians and Albania until 1944; about 43,000 photographs belong to the fund of the Luce Institute during the period of the Italian occupation, of which 17,000 photographs are extremely rare specimens, while about 13,000 photographs are negatives.
Over 90% of the aforementioned photo categories have been digitized and can be accessed through the “Photo Gallery Online” platform. The photo library, which until a few years ago could only be accessed in the Study Hall of the General Directorate of Archives, is the second largest in Albania for photographs from the period before 1944, after the Marubi photo library.
The photo library is now available online for everyone and is very easy to use by the public through the website fototeka.arkiva.gov.al/. On this platform, all those interested can not only see the photos in recognizable format for FREE, but can automatically buy them online, in high resolution, by making a minimum payment (100 ALL per photo). Also, the platform is interactive, where anyone can suggest descriptive elements of the photograph that may not be recognized by specialists in the field (such as names of people appearing in it, places, relief, description, time of making), enabling a collaboration between the institution and all history and photography enthusiasts. /j.p/p.s./
