In 2016, when he donated his sketchbooks to the National Library, Prime Minister Edi Rama declared the following:
We will work on the National Library like no one has during these last 25 years. We are fully committed to this process and will return what the culture of transition has amputated off the body of the Library.
However, in reality, the state of the National Library hasn’t changed for the better. In face, it seems to have gotten worse. After a fire that burned down part of the library collection last year, the library building was flooded last weekend.
Approximately 12 thousand books located in the Library’s archive have been drenched as a result of the heavy rainfall of June 23, and the institution has announced a state of emergency.
As one can see in the above images, library employees are attempting to dry out the books by laying them out and using paper towels to soak up the water. Professional water damage management usually involves freezing publications in industrial freezers, after which the publications are freeze-dried. This prevents the deformation of the paper fibres.
Similar to the flooding of the Tirana municipality building, the flooding of the library was caused by the Skënderbeg Square’s poor irrigation system.
