National Library of Kosovo

The history of libraries in Kosovo dates back to the 14th and 15th centuries.[1] Collections of the Christian and Muslim religious communities are considered as the oldest archives libraries in Kosovo.[2]

Kosovo's institutional library was officially founded in December 1944 in the city of Prizren, which at the time was the capital of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo.[3]

In 1982 the library was moved to the current building which was built in Pristina, the current capital of Kosovo.

Over the years the National Library's name has changed depending on the political position of Kosovo.[4]

Note that the former official names of the National Library of Kosovo are originally in Albanian and can be found in the library's journal Bibloletra

In 1989, Kosovo's status as an autonomous region of Serbia was revoked, tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians working in the public sector lost their jobs, and Albanian students were prohibited from taking courses in the Albanian language. For public and private libraries in Kosovo, this was a time when many library collections were burned and destroyed.

The library was subsequently used to house a large number of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia who had fled their countries due to the Yugoslav Wars. After NATO's occupation of Kosovo in June 1999, it was revealed that the Yugoslav Army had used the library as a command-and-control centre. The materials inside had been stolen, reading room furniture smashed, and the card catalogue had been dumped in the basement. The library workers were kept out for a week while Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeeping troops checked the building for any hidden explosives.[5]

According to national and international organizations, about 100,000 Albanian-language books have been sent to the paper mill in Lipjan for pulping. Among those books were collections of national heritage, which explained the nation's origins and history. [6]

After the war in Kosovo there was a great will and desire to reconstruct the library buildings and re-establish library services at all levels. This was done with the assistance of a special group of experts from UNESCO, the Council of Europe (CoE) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).[7]

This special group of experts created different training programs like: Legislation and Administration, Mobile Library, Reconstruction, Book and Reading, Information Technology Professional Training and Development, Cultural Heritage, Children and Youth, Open Access Programme, Initiative Support, Twinning.[8] During the years of reorganization the National Library of Kosovo has been aided by many institutions such as the US Embassy, OSCE, Zentralbibliothek Zürich, German Artist Initiatives, Raiffeisen Bank.[9]

Another outside look of the Library focusing on the domes.

The most significant part of the current library is its building. There are contradictory opinions about its style, which have resulted in different versions regarding the building. The current building of the National Library of Kosovo was inaugurated on 25 November 1982. It was designed by the Croatian architect Andrija Mutnjaković. Its space consists of 16,500 square meters. It is made with zenith windows, with a total 99 domes of different sizes and is entirely covered in a metal fishing net, which have their own particular architectural symbolism.[10]

It houses two reading rooms with 300 and 100 seats respectively, a reading room for periodicals, rooms for special collections, cataloguing and research, a 150-seat amphitheatre and a 75-seat meeting hall. It has the capacity to accommodate about two million volumes. The materials are located on two levels below ground and are closed to the public.[11]

The lobby of the library is used for various cultural events. The floor of the hall is a unique work of diverse mosaic marble stone. The largest dome of the library is the main ornament of the hall's high ceiling, thus providing ample natural lighting.[12]

• 
  The main hall with the marble floor.
• 
  One of the amphitheatres inside the Library.
• 
  One of the reading rooms inside the Library.
• 
  The view to the third floor.

Inside view of one of the domes.

According to the architect of the National Library of Kosovo the building is meant to represent a style blending Byzantine and Islamic architectural forms.[13] In other sources there are statements from the actual architect that “this project which is linked to the tradition of pre-Romanesque architecture of the Balkans, was being considered among other project for the Sarajevo National Library building”.[14]

By others this building is seen as a reaction to the impersonality of International Style and an attempt to combine modern means with regional traditions and rural architecture,[15] but also as a Modern-Metabolist style.[16]

Despite the official statements of the architect about the style of the National Library of Kosovo there are many other controversies when it comes to the appearance of the building and its meaning. One of the most famous versions is the one that connects the domes of the building with the national Albanian hat “plisi”.[17] This was the reason why Serbian politicians reacted very strongly about the appearance of the building.[18]

Another version is that this project was meant to reconcile the relations between Serbians and Albanians. Its domes are a combination of existing Turkish baths in Prizren and Patriarchate of Peć.[19]

• 
  Circular rosettes by Simon Shiroka.
• 
  A rosette by Simon Shiroka of an old man wearing the Albanian hat “Plisi”.
• 
  One of the domes inside the Library.

The National Library of Kosovo has 1,890,194 library units, with 475,324 titles, which 382,806 of them are books, 281,591 are magazines, 984,022 newspapers and 241,775 other units. Between 2004 and 2009 the library was enriched with 30,000 new titles.[20]

In 2013 the number of the library's collections reached 2 million units.[21]

Collections of rare old books, old newspapers and magazines, Albanian manuscripts with Latin, Greek and Arabic graphics are a precious treasure of cultural heritage stored in this institution. Also, maps, photo documents and other valuable documents present a great cultural heritage.[22]

The oldest book found in the National Library is Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis by Marin Barleti, written in Latin.[23]

National Library of Kosovo uses three international cataloging standards. AACR2 which is ISNC standard, ISBD which is IFLA standard and MARC 21 standard. The National Library of Kosovo uses two standard classification of materials, Universal Decimal Classification and Subject Classification.[24]