Abrehot Library is a public library in
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...
, Ethiopia.
It was officially opened in January 2022 in a ceremony presided over by Prime Minister
Abiy Ahmed
Abiy Ahmed Ali (; ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He rose through the ranks of government via the Information Networ ...
who initiated the project.
Built at a cost of over 1.1 billion
Birr, and at a size of 19,000 square meters, it is the largest library in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. Abrehot, meaning ‘Enlightenment’, in the Amharic language, is located in front of the
Ethiopian Parliament Building
The Ethiopian Parliament building is the assembly place of the Federal Parliamentary Assembly of Ethiopia. It is located in the centre of the capital city Addis Ababa.
History
It was built in the early 1930s for the Imperial Parliament of ...
.
The building was designed b
ZIAS Design International PLC construction of the 19,000-square-meter facility took almost two years. The 4-storey facility, the biggest public library in the country, is equipped with 1.5 km long shelves that are capable of holding 1.4 million books, and can accommodate more than 2,000 users at a time. The design of Abrehot is centered on three areas, making use of both outdoor and indoor learning spaces. The Knowledge Garden is an outdoor space, delineated by lines of
Olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
trees and with a central planting of four
Sessa legume trees to form a natural performance area. The Knowledge Springs is a dedicated online learning zone. The Knowledge Centre is the library itself. It also has 8 bookstores, a meeting room, cafeteria, and a children's reading area.
A number of bodies and private individuals responded to a government call to donate books to Abrehot
[https://typicalethiopian.com/abrehot-library-%E1%8A%A0%E1%89%A5%E1%88%AD%E1%88%86%E1%89%B5-%E1%89%A4%E1%89%B0-%E1%88%98%E1%8C%BD%E1%88%90%E1%8D%8D%E1%89%B5-design-books-working-hour/ Abrehot Library] includin
Book Aid InternationalEthiopia Reads
and the office of the Prime Minister.
Abrehot library also currently houses more than 300,000 local and 120,000 international research papers.
References
Addis Ababa
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