The archive was founded in 1970 following a process of nationalization of all private properties initiated by the communist state. Gegë Marubi was appointed as person in charge of the Marubi Phototeque. He undertook a process of cataloguing and registration of the whole photography material made up by more than 500.000 negatives and including the work of 18 photographers, mostly from Shkodra.
The collection depicts important historical events and proves to record the first traces of the Albanian photographs. Various techniques have been used through the year: from the wet-collodion to the gelatin dry process, planfilms, infrared photography and celluloid roll films.
Part of the preserved materials are different artefacts such as the old registers of the photographers, albums, technical equipments used in the private studios prior to the nationalization.

All funds are preserved in the museum spaces in an infrastructure with appropriate conservation parametres for the various artefacts.

The online archive counts 51.000 images available for users, around 10% of the photography material of the Marubi National Museum of Photography archive. The digitalization work is ongoing.