The National Archives and Library of

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 ...

, located 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 ...

, is the

national library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, ...

and

archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

of the country. The library was inaugurated in 1944 by Emperor

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

and began service with books donated by the emperor.

Overview

In 1976, proclamation No. 50/76 gave the library the legal right to collect three copies of every material published in the country. In 1999, the library was reestablished by proclamation no. 179.1999 as a national institution, which resulted in structural changes and the mission to be one of the top five national libraries and archives in Africa by 2020. It is currently a unit of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The archives was established in 1979, and its collection includes ancient and historical

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s written from as early as the 14th and 15th centuries. Hryc´ko, K. An outline of the National Archives and Library of Ethiopia. ''Aethiopica'' 2007, 10, 92–105. It started functioning with archives from the Ministry of the Grand Palace, Palace of the Crown Prince, and others. The archive includes letters written by several kings, empresses, and princes.

Notes

References

* HRYÚKO, Katarzyna. 2007. An Outline of the National Archives and Library of Ethiopia. ''Aethiopica'' Vol. 10: 92–105. * WION, Anaïs,
The National Archives and Library of Ethiopia: six years of Ethio-French cooperation (2001-2006)
, available on Open Archive Repository HAL-SHS and to be published in the ''Acts of the Enno Littmann Conference, Aksum, Dec. 2005''.

Bibliography

* (Includes information about the national library)

External links

Official website
Archives in Ethiopia Culture of Ethiopia Government of Ethiopia Libraries in Ethiopia

Buildings and structures in Addis Ababa Culture in Addis Ababa Education in Addis Ababa 1944 establishments in Ethiopia Libraries established in 1944 20th-century architecture in Ethiopia {{library-struct-stub

Overview

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links