The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani and the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Hajrulla Çeku, signed today a memorandum of cooperation between the “Dr. Ibrahim Rugova” Presidential Library and the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.
President Osmani expressed her gratitude to Minister Çeku for his immediate readiness to jointly support the National Library, as well as the other subordinate institutions of the Ministry of Culture, on the “Dr. Ibrahim Rugova” Presidential Library project.
This project, according to President Osmani, is based on the American model of building presidential libraries and will bear the name of the historic President Dr. Ibrahim Rugova.
“As I mentioned before, this is based on the American model and consequently, we have received support from the US State Department, which will send an expert to help complete this library based upon this model. At the same time, according to the memorandum of cooperation which we signed today with Minister Çeku, both the National Library and the Museum, as well as the Kosovo Archives will help in working together for fundraising for the library “, said President Osmani.
According to the President, the National Library will provide the entire bibliography of President Rugova, such as books, his articles, but also all books and articles written about him. Further, she announced that the Rugova family has promised to donate the personal archive.
“The important news is that the family of President Rugova has also decided to make the entire archive of the President available to the Presidential Library”, the President emphasized.
In this context, President Osmani has invited all library, archival, and museological institutions to provide materials such as books, articles, magazines, photographs or artefacts pertaining to President Rugova.
“In this manner, the efforts made by an entire nation for freedom and independence, and above all for state-building, will be preserved in our historical memory. To show that in this state-building process the institutional memory is extremely important “, said President Osmani.
Whereas, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Hajrulla Çeku, said that by creating this institution and baptizing it with the name of the Historical President Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, in addition to honouring his figure, also honours the nation and the Republic of Kosovo.
“We as the Ministry of Culture together with the institutions that are under the Ministry, with the National Library of Kosovo, the National Museum of Kosovo, the State Archives, and all the constituent parts will be ready and that we will take this important and noble task very seriously. Therefore, in addition to the pleasure, we also feel obliged at the same time to respond to this initiative, to become part of the “Dr. “Ibrahim Rugova” Presidential Library, said Minister Çeku.