For a long time, I and my business partner have been desiring to have a place of our own (a physical bookstore, besides the online store) where we could serve our customers and continue to offer a variety of services which are not possible through the online bookstore. The good news is that since the start of the month of April that dream is becoming a reality. We’ve already signed the lease for a store where our new bookstore will be located.

Despite the fact that we’ve been selling Albanian books online for over two years now, the opening of a physical bookstore is in many ways a new and exciting experience altogether. There are so many different things to think about that it does take time to prepare for all of them.

In the next few days we should be getting the bookshelves started and when they are ready, we’ll be getting the books and other things in. I’ll post some more information and pictures at a later stage, since I want to wait till most everything is ready.

I would love to hear your opinions, questions and comments if this is of interest to you as well.

P.S. The bookstore is now is open. Check it out here: Libraria “ShtepiaeLibrit.com”

However, as I have gladly discovered in these past two years that I’ve been working on ShtepiaeLibrit.com dreams can become a reality. Well, I still cannot say to have achieved all I intend to do for the future, it nevertheless gives me a sense of fulfillment to know that much has been achieved and the feeling is real.

This is not the end of challenges, nor is it going to become easier, I think I’m sufficiently aware of that fact. But the reality of working for something that you can call your own is obviously something that I am finding to be “my cup of tea”. I know that I will not limit myself to just this experience, but this will definitively serve as a strong foundation for other things to come!

To help you with this process, out of the many different sources out there I would direct you to one scholar whom many would recommend highly for his wonderful work, translations, study and research regarding the Albanian language and literature. His name is Robert Elsie and is one of those few people that has contributed and continues to contribute so much to this ancient language that I is my mother-tongue.

A most recent and very interesting development on one of his websites is the publication of audio recordings of the Albanian language spoken in different dialects in all the major areas where Albanians live today.

This is how Robert Elsie introduces the Albanian Dialects section, “This website offers the listener audio recordings in Albanian from various regions where the language is spoken. Though the dialects of Albanian are usually mutually intelligible to the listener with an ear for language, regional differences, deriving largely from the historical development of the language, can be substantial, and they are quite fascinating. You can thus listen here to people speaking in a wide range of Albanian dialects. Some of these individuals are good dialect speakers, others were recorded at random to give an idea of how modern Albanian is used in various areas.”

To listen to the recordings please visit: Albanian Dialects on AlbanianLiterature.net

Do you think this kind of research is worthwhile? Post your comments below. Thanks.

Meanwhile, I’m sure customers or visitors going to the site yesterday must have wondered what was going on and there was almost no way to reach them. Today I placed an apology on the main page to let them know that everything is back to normal.

Another reason why this was concerning to me was because only a few days ago, on February 10th, 2009, we celebrated the 1st year anniversary of the bookstore. And obviously this would not be good publicity for anyone, especially if you are the biggest online store of Albanian books with over 10,000 visitors a month. And that is something to be proud of!

Oh, and something else. Now we have an English Blog called the Albanian Book House Blog, which I think should be of value to our English speaking visitors. It will not as many posts as the Albanian Blog, but nevertheless it is there to help improve the communication and information for our vistors.

What I’ve learned
I’ve learned that despite the fact that the general idea is that websites most often don’t break down, the fact is that they do. Like anything else which gets used a lot, sooner or later it is destined to break down or have some king of a problem. The main issue is preparing for such times and doing backups regularly.

Long hours of work and lots of thinking have gone into restructuring and setting up the functions of the store as well as tweaking all these aspects so that they work best for our customers.

A new store design

An exciting development is the new template that we’ve installed. It is by far the best template I have ever used and it continues to be a delight working on adapting it to the Albanian language. It has all the same great features, but it just looks better.

A new Logo

Yes, installing a new template was a great chance to change our logo as well. It is the same concept, with the book, however, better.

A new Blog design

Another thing that we are redesigning is the Blog for ShtepiaeLibrit.com. It will be a place where:

• you can learn more about the ongoing work behind the store
• get notified by email about new releases
• leave your feedback about anything
• post your request for books
• get answers to your questions
• and more…

Instructional presentations
Another thing that we are planning for the future will be instructional presentations or videos, about the functioning of the store, i.e. how to make a payment, etc. However, this will require some more time to develop as currently the priority is getting the store going properly.

Anyway, you’re more then welcome to check it out and give me your feedback on this Blog or the one at on the ShtepiaeLibrit.com. For the rest of this week we will be working on solving several technical issues that need to be tweaked and worked out and then I will make another announcement here as well about the big opening.

“Albania was the one occupied country that evaded the Nazi persecution of Jews and had the unique survival rate of 100%. It was the only occupied country to have a larger Jewish population after the Second World War than before.” writes Harvey Sarner in his book “Rescue in Albania”.

More exerts from the same book:

“Throughout their long history Albanians have desired and promoted peace and cooperation among all peoples. They have welcomed foreign visitors to their shores in a spirit of friendship. And, when Jewish refugees found their way to Albania, often fleeing for their lives, the Albanian people gave them shelter and protection.”

“Under fascist rule in Albania, as in other occupied countries during World War II, the Nazi authorities maintained strict surveillance over the Jewish population, registering both natives and new arrivals, and then herding them into camps. In Albania, Jews were removed from Durres and Vlora, because these towns were strategic transportation links, and while the Nazis tried to deport all Jews not of Albanian citizenship, the Albanian people helped them escape concentration camps by taking them into their homes, giving them food and shelter, and hiding them.”

“At first, individual Albanians saved Jews on their own initiative. Later, when it became more dangerous, the task was organized by National Liberation Councils in the towns and villages. There were cases where Jewish families, in great danger of discovery, were moved from family to family and village to village, from town to country and back again. Sometimes Jewish families traveled with false passports given to them by Albanians. Often Jews were disguised as Albanian peasants and covertly relocated. In the process, many Albanians were arrested and shot to death for their heroic activities.”

Moreover, working with books has encouraged me to start reading several titles like the Tregime të motshme shqiptare, by Mitrush Kuteli which I am enjoying very much at the moment.

I read so much in English that often I neglect the fact that I have to try and read in Albanian books as well. I do a lot of reading of Albanian newspapers, documents, etc, but not that many books.

Anyway, just wanted to share that with you to tell you how things are going.

Copyright (c) Albanian Blogger 2007

This is a great way for those who speak Albanian but currently reside elsewhere in the world to get their hands on Albanian books. Anyone who is able to get online, whether it be at an internet café or using o2 Broadband in their home, will be able to benefit from using this service. We aim to keep people up to date on the latest Albanian releases, and offer a useful service for those interested in books. For book lovers who often find it difficult to find text written in Albanian, this is a great opportunity to stay up to date.

This is not the only such project on the Internet, however, it is quite unique as it provides you with many more facilities and a usability close to that of Amazon.com where customers can register, get notified for new books, create a wish list and many more things that will be added to the bookstore as the work goes on. So far we have sold the first two books, to a customer living in Britain, but with an U.S. address. And we have not even started to advertise yet.

Anyway, if you want to check it out, then visit “ShtepiaeLibrit.com – libra shqip” www.shtepiaelibrit.com For those of you who speak Albanian we are implementing also a Blog (www.shtepiaelibrit.com/blog) to go with the website where you can get updates about what’s going on with the website (new books, project progress, etc). You can also subscribe to the Blog and get updates that way.

By the way I would love to get your feedback on this project as it is quite important for me and the other partner in business. We think that we have a pretty good project in hand and that it could go quite well, and your feedback would definitively allows us to achieve our goals.

Copyright (c) Albanian Blogger 2007