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The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (Jerusalem)

Written by Anat Mooreville

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, known as the JDC or the Joint, is an international Jewish philanthropic organization started after the First World War to assist Jewish refugees in Eastern Europe and Palestine. With records of activities in over ninety countries dating from 1914 to the present, the JDC Archives are a significant resource to understand not only American Jewish relief efforts abroad, but also Jewish social, cultural, political, and economic conditions around the world. For the Middle East, the JDC Archives include records created primarily between 1940-1977 from Aden, Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey. Middle East specialists will find this archive particularly useful for conducting research on Jewish history in the Middle East and North Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. The archive has two locations—Jerusalem and New York City.

An OSE trachoma treatent center in Casablanca c. 1954
A sample photograph from the JDC archives: an OSE trachoma treatment center in Casablanca c. 1954

Collection

The JDC Archives are located in two centers, one at the JDC’s New York City headquarters and the other in Jerusalem in the Givat Sha’ul neighborhood. These centers are not equal in size and scope. The Jerusalem archive is the larger and more comprehensive of the two; in fact, all the records of the New York archive are available in Jerusalem in microfilm format.

The archive in Jerusalem houses the records of JDC field offices throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, along with the records of JDC operations in Israel. The bulk of the Middle Eastern and North African records of the JDC are part of the Geneva Files (1945-1977), which were subsequently shipped to the JDC Archives in Jerusalem after the Geneva Office—opened in 1957 as the European headquarters of the organization—was closed in 1977.

Although this review focuses on the Jerusalem archives, I will briefly outline what is available in the New York collection. The New York archive houses American headquarters communications with governments, national and international agencies, and JDC field offices. The bulk of the archival record concerns relief, rescue and support activities in Europe between 1914 and 1945. Later materials concern JDC activities in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and JDC activities in Eastern Europe during the Communist period. For the Middle East historian, the New York archives detail the medical, educational, vocational and relief activities in Palestine starting in 1914 through the Second World War. These include institutions established to help the disabled and orphans. A detailed list of these files are available online through the finding aids (search by country). They also contain information on refugee and aid activities in North Africa during the Second World War.

The JDC Archives includes over three miles of text documents, 100,000 photographs, a research library of more than 6,000 books, 1,100 audio recordings including oral histories, and a collection of 2,500 videos, covering 90 countries throughout the twentieth century.  Many of the collections are arranged chronologically, others by subject or office of origin (e.g., Geneva, Rome, Istanbul). At the same time, the JDC is an active Jewish humanitarian assistance organization. All JDC historical records older than thirty-five years are open to the public with the exclusion of materials containing information that the JDC believes would adversely affect its ongoing work.

For the period following the founding of the State of Israel, the JDC Archives in Jerusalem contain files related to Malben (נֶחֱשָׁלִים בְּעוֹלִים לְטִפּוּל מוֹסְדוֹת “Institutions for the Care of Disabled Immigrants”), the social service organization created jointly by the JDC, the Jewish Agency, and the Israeli government in 1949. Malben provided institutional care and social services; established hospitals, clinics and old-age homes; trained nurses and rehabilitation workers; and fostered the development of private and public organizations in Israel for the care of the disabled. Files also document missions and programs to help settle Jews from North Africa and the Middle East in Israel. For example, the JDC organized Operation Magic Carpet, which evacuated about 48,000 Jews from Yemen to the newly established State of Israel and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, which brought approximately 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel.

Records related to the Middle East and North Africa document the JDC’s medical, educational, and vocational support in these regions from the late 1940s through the 1970s. These social efforts were wide-ranging and expansive. In North Africa, JDC initiated public health programs with OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants) to combat diseases such as tuberculosis and trachoma. The JDC frequently offered assistance to local Jewish educational organizations such as Ozar Hatorah and Alliance Israelite Universelle. Numerous country reports document local demographic, economic, political, and social conditions from the perspective of the JDC’s staff.

The photography collection of the Middle East and North Africa is quite large and can be fully searched by title, description, date, subject, location, photographer, and other fields on the JDC Archives’ online catalog. To see the range of photographs available, we recommend the galleries on Algeria in the 1960s, Tunisia in 1950s, and early Palestine.

A sampling of the range of materials available in the JDC archives include correspondence, committee and board meeting minutes, field reports from worldwide staff, financial statements; memoranda, lists of aid recipients and supplementary allocations, program descriptions, passenger lists, cables, supply lists, restitution laws and statutes, summaries of statistical reports, personnel files, legal files, case files, conference proceedings, lists of names, audits, brochures, press releases, pamphlets, and news clippings.

A JDC poster from the First World War
A JDC poster from the First World War

Research Experience

The JDC Archives is in the process of digitizing its collections. While the photo database is fully available online, other text resources are only partially available. The online catalog is a good place to begin your search, and some documents can be accessed through the website directly, but keep in mind it is in no way exhaustive, especially for Middle Eastern material. There is a very brief finding aid for the Geneva Office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1945-1954 records, but it does not detail the Middle East/North Africa collection. The records of the Istanbul office (1943-47) or the Geneva office (1955-1978) are not available online. You can learn more about how to search the online database by viewing the archive’s video tutorials or reading its guide. The JDC Archives staff has access to a more comprehensive online catalog that is password protected.

To access the full catalog of the JDC Archives in Jerusalem, one must first e-mail Shachar Beer to make an appointment to visit. Only one or two researchers are allowed at a time, as the archive is located in one of the working offices of the JDC. On your first visit, Mr. Beer will give you a stack of binders that contain the full catalog. Unfortunately, they are not arranged by country, and it is advisable to spend the first day examining all the binders for relevant material and noting the title and file code that you wish to order during subsequent visits. Researchers should note that since March 2013 the archive has been in the midst of reclassifying its files and consequently the code which appears on the physical file may differ from its new classification. You therefore may not be able to order material on your first day. Material can only be ordered once a day and is limited to five or six boxes (more if the material is microfilmed). These should be ordered in the morning or emailed to Mr. Beer before your visit. The time of retrieval of material is not routine, but it usually arrives from the warehouse before 11:00. Once requested, it usually takes about thirty minutes to an hour for material to be prepared for the researcher. One should also coordinate with Mr. Beer the time of arrival to the archives in the morning, which can be as early as 9:00 or as late as 11:00, depending on his schedule.

Since the JDC Archive in Jerusalem only accommodates one or two researchers per day, I would recommend allotting at least a few days for research to get the most of out of your scheduled visits. It takes some time to become familiar with the full holdings because they are not online, and one can only see a limited number of files per day.

There is one microfilm machine, as well as a spare office and a conference room in which Mr. Beer directs researchers to work with original files. The catalog does not indicate whether the file exists in microfilm or only as an original. Since the archives are in the office of a working NGO, it is mainly full of JDC staff, the archivist, and perhaps one other researcher.

Access

In order to visit the archives, one must fill out an application located online. Once permission is received (usually less than a week), you need to email Mr. Beer to schedule an appointment.

Although the stated hours of the Jerusalem Archive are Sunday-Thursday 9:00-15:00, the actual hours depend on the appointment times scheduled with Mr. Beer. Generally, researchers may work at the archive until the JDC office closes around 16:00.

Reproductions

Reproduction services (photocopy and microfilm printing) are not available. You are allowed to use a digital camera to photograph files and microfilms. There is a one shekel fee for each photograph. Researchers tally their own photographs and report them to Mr. Beer at the end of each session. In some cases, Mr. Beer will waive the fee for photographs of microfilm material.

A cable regarding operations in Yemen
A cable regarding operations in Yemen

Transportation and Food

The archive is located in the industrial park neighborhood of Givat Sha’ul in West Jerusalem. It is not easily accessible from downtown Jerusalem. Buses 33 and 67 stop outside the archive, and it is about a ten minute walk from the Kiryat Moshe light rail station.

There are many chain restaurants and cafes in the archive building and nearby that cater to the business crowd. There is free coffee and tea in the archive itself. You can also bring your own lunch and eat it in the archive.

Miscellaneous:

The JDC Archives offers a fellowship to conduct research in either the New York or Jerusalem Archives. Check the website for details and application.

Future Plans and Rumors

The archive is in the midst of digitizing its collection, so the state of the online catalog and available digitized files is constantly changing.

Contact information

JDC Archives

Beit Hadefus Street 11, Lobby 2, Floor 3

02-653-6403

General information: Archives@jdc.org.il

Archivist: Shachar Beer <ShacharB@jdc.org.il>

Resources and Links

The online catalog is sophisticated and contains 900,000 digitized pages. However, it is not complete, especially in regards to Middle Eastern and North African materials.

The archives website is quite expansive and details the history of the JDC, the archives, and contains various finding aids and resources on how to search the archive.

**Information about the history and holdings of the collection comes from the JDC Archives website.

Anat Mooreville is a doctoral candidate in the UCLA History Department where she studies twentieth-century Jewish and Middle Eastern medical history.

Cite this: Anat Mooreville, “The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (Jerusalem), HAZINE, 2 Feb 2014, https://hazine.info/2014/02/02/jdc/

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Gazi Husrev Begova Library

Written by Nir Shafir

Gazi Husrev-Begova Biblioteka (hereafter GHB) is the largest collection of Islamic manuscripts and documents in the Balkans. Located on the premises of the mosque complex of the same name in Sarajevo, the well-catalogued collection and brand new library is one of the premier locations for the study of the Ottoman Empire in general and the Balkans in particular. At the beginning of 2014, the library will officially open a state-of-the-art building to researchers and the general public.

The entrance to Gazi Husrev Begova Library
The entrance to Gazi Husrev Begova Library

History

Like many manuscript libraries in the Islamic world, the collections of Gazi Husrev Beg Library coalesced as it aggregated the manuscripts and papers of various medresas, Sufi lodges, and private libraries over the years. The complex that houses the library was constructed by that great sixteenth-century benefactor of Sarajevo—the eponymous Gazi Husrev Beg. Starting with a medresa, dzami, hanikah, and a market, it grew to include various tombs and a clock tower displaying lunar time. In 1697, however, Eugene of Savoy razed Sarajevo, supposedly destroying many of the books and ledgers in the process. While the medresa was endowed with a small group of books, a separate library building was only built for the medresa in 1863. (Two other library buildings in Sarajevo predate this library though they are no longer extant.) In the twentieth century, the library began to incorporate the collections of other institutions and private individuals. The first volume of the catalog was published in 1963 and followed by subsequent volumes of equal detail over the years. During the 1991-1994 war, the manuscripts and defters were hidden away in private homes and bank vaults and so they were spared the fate of the Oriental Institute collections, which were completely destroyed in a fire started by the shelling of Serbian artillery. In January 2014, a new, ultra-modern library building, built with the generous donations of the Qatari royal family, will be opened. The al-Furqan Foundation has also supported the continued publication of the high quality catalog. The library has recently completely digitized its collections, which continue to grow today through the donations and bequests of individuals.

Collection

The library’s main collections consist of Islamic manuscripts, printed books, documents such as court records, and photographs. The manuscript collection contains around 10,500 volumes in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Bosnian (in Arabic script). Of these languages, the first two tend to predominate. Given that many of the books in Sarajevo apparently did not survive its razing in 1697, the manuscript collection is heavily weighted toward topics, authors, and copies from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection seems to include a much higher than average concentration of moralistic, dogmatic, and sermon-like texts than other manuscript collections and so researchers can find a wide array of texts condemning practices like tomb visitation or tobacco smoking. Similarly, there is a large number of manuscripts copied by medresa students, as evinced by the surfeit of treatises on education. While such treatises were popular throughout the Ottoman Empire, the local origins of many of these copies provide researchers a glimpse of the local intellectual

Eugene, the dude that burned down Sarajevo in 1697
Eugene, the dude that burned down Sarajevo in 1697

culture. Researchers can gain further insight into this local culture by reading the small but significant number of treatises written in Bosnian, the vernacular of the region. These treatises, too, are often prayer books or moralistic exhortations. At the same time, the collection points to the many Bosnian scholars who traveled to Syria, the Hijaz and Istanbul in the early modern period. There are, of course, a good number of older and more “precious” books and the library’s promotional brochure highlights some of these.

In addition to its manuscripts, the library contains one of the largest collections of early print in the Balkans. The library’s holdings comprise over 25,000 printed treatises in Arabic, Turkish and Bosnian (in Arabic scripts). In addition, it also has a collection of around 35,000 books in Bosnian and other European languages in Latin script.

The library also houses various documents from the Ottoman period. Of these, the most comprehensive are the court records (sijillat) of Sarajevo and the more limited collections for the neighboring cities of Mostar, Tuzla, and Fojnica. For Sarajevo, these records exist primarily for the eighteenth century, starting from 1707 and ending in 1852. Records from before that period are presumed to have been destroyed in the razing of the city in 1697. Three volumes of sixteenth-century court records do exist, however, for the years 1551-1552, 1556-1558, and 1565-1566. For Mostar there are two registers covering 1766-1769, for Fojnica a single register covers the years 1763-1769, and a partial register from Tuzla exists from the first half of the seventeenth century. In addition to this, there are 1,600 endowment charters (vakifnama), 500 as individual documents and 1,100 within the court record defters. Paired with these, there are around 5,000 documents produced by the Ottoman bureaucracy. Library patrons consult these documents as digital copies.

Finally, the library houses a special collection documenting the Muslim community of Bosnia. The community’s archives cover the period of 1882-1993 and complement the large collection of 5000 photographs, postcards, and posters held in the library. The library also holds complete collections of many nineteenth-century Muslim newspapers from Sarajevo.

One of the many photographs from the library's collections
One of the many photographs from the library’s collections

Research Experience

The manuscript collection of Gazi Husrev-Begova Library, along with those of the other manuscript libraries in Sarajevo, bears the distinction of being extremely well-cataloged. The eighteen-volume printed catalog, written by numerous individuals, is essentially divided into two: the first nine volumes or so describe collections present in the library until around 1970 and the second half details acquisitions after that date. In both halves, works are categorized topically. The catalogers made a smart choice to maintain the conceptual unity of each codex: all the treatises in a mecmua, which comprise the vast majority of volumes, are listed after the first entry. Codices are placed under specific topics according to their first work, which means that the topical organization of the catalog is slightly loose. Researchers should browse through indices of every volume of the catalog if they are looking for particular authors or titles. The catalogers were particularly attentive to the details of manuscript production; they mention copyist names, owners, locations, physical characteristics, as well as any unique aspects or contents of a manuscript in each entry. Excellent indices exist for author name (in Arabic and Latin scripts), title, copyist, owner(s), and location. Mistakes, while present, are rare. The catalog is written in Bosnian, but there should also be an English translation available. The catalog often quotes material directly in Arabic, so researchers can simply read the quoted text. There had been an electronic catalog available, although the library removed it recently from its website due to poor performance. In its place, the library is actively developing a new electronic catalog that it hopes to roll out in the coming months.

The printed works in the library have traditionally received less attention than the manuscripts although this is quickly changing. The library has recently finished cataloging them and once the new electronic catalog is online, researchers should be able to access the catalog of printed works. Some of these printed treatises were even part of the collections of the Ottoman-era libraries from the eighteenth century, though the new catalog might not list the original collection name for each entry, and therefore researchers must go through the volumes individually to find this information.

The main reading room of Gazi Husrev Begova Library
The main reading room of Gazi Husrev Begova Library

It is very pleasant to conduct research at Gazi Husrev-Begova Library, especially since the opening of the new building. The building has a large general reading room with excellent desks and ample windows overlooking the medresa complex. The desks have good overhead lamps. The reading room should eventually have a large collection of reference material but is empty for now.

To request a manuscript researchers should first browse through the printed eighteen-volume catalog of the library. A Bosnian- and English-language copy of the catalog is kept behind the reception desk and the staff will let you browse a couple of volumes at a time. Once the library introduces the new computer catalog, researchers should also be able to use the single computer terminal at the reception desk to find relevant manuscripts. You must stand to use this computer since it was not set up for consultations longer than a few minutes. Once researchers identify a manuscript they wish to consult, they can fill out a form and request up to twenty manuscripts at a time. After twenty minutes to an hour, the digitized copies of the manuscripts are transferred to a computer terminal in a second reading room behind the reception desk for consultation. If library patrons wish to buy copies of the digitized manuscripts, they must fill out a further form that is then sent to the director for approval. The staff might let you simply delete unwanted files on your terminal and burn the remaining images onto a CD or they might prepare the specific pages you request. Researchers can request to see the physical copy of the manuscript only after receiving permission directly from the director of the library.

The reception desk at GHB
The reception desk at GHB

The new GHB library was largely designed with digital research in mind. The quality of the digitized manuscripts is generally high, though there are the occasional low-resolution images. Generally speaking, the binding of a manuscript is photographed though this might be limited to the cover itself. Conveniently, an information slip from the catalog listing its title and author precedes the digital copy of each work, even separate treatises in a mecmua. The only inconvenience is that researchers cannot access the digitized manuscripts directly from the computer catalog.

The staff of the library are extremely helpful and professional. The working language of the library is Bosnian, though employees at the reception desk should be able to speak English, Turkish, or Arabic.

Researchers should note that as the library settles into the new building, new protocols and procedures will be instituted, so some of this information might change in the near future.  For instance, there is a large reference library of books in Bosnian, English, Arabic, Turkish, and more available to researchers, but it is not currently on the shelves. The library, however, is constantly striving to improve researcher experience and will make changes as needed.

Access

The library is open Monday to Friday, from 8:00 to 15:00. It is closed on the weekends along with secular and religious holidays. Researchers are advised to talk to the receptionist to keep abreast of religious holidays in Bosnia, which can be a bit different from those in other Muslim countries.

The library, like all research institutions in Sarajevo, is very welcoming to researchers. After a short registration process, in which researchers might need to provide a formal ID, researchers can access the collection.

The main entrance of the library might not be wheelchair accessible, but researchers in wheelchairs should be able to enter from the employee entrance on Mula Mustafe Bašeskije Street.

Reproductions

Digital reproductions are provided in the form of a CD. The price is a somewhat costly at €1 per exposure and the CD will be ready for pick-up three days after the initial request. The delay is a bit odd, since all the material is already digitized, but researchers in a hurry might be able to expedite the process with the help of an accommodating staff member. In the future, the library hopes to introduce a system that will allow researchers to request digital reproductions remotely. Researchers are not allowed to take their own photographs as they are not allowed to see the original manuscript or defter.

Transportation and Food

The library is located in the center of the old city of Sarajevo and is easily accessible by the tram. Researchers can alight at either the cathedral or the last stop— Baščaršija. The very modern looking library building is located in between the two stops, next to the Gazi Husrev Begova Dzamija complex and the  Old Synagogue/Jewish Museum. If researchers stay at hotels or hostels near the historic center, the library is easily reached by foot.

There is no shortage of eating options near the library as it is in the center of the historic city. Next door there are a variety of cafes and burek sellers as well as quite a few more touristy restaurants. There is also a small café in the library itself that serves Turkish tea, Bosnian coffee, and espresso.

Miscellaneous

The library also houses a museum in the basement that exhibits certain rare manuscripts and various material artifacts related to writing, reading, and daily life in Sarajevo. Various marble inscriptions from Sarajevo dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are also displayed in the basement for the time being. There are also conference facilities in the library itself.

The library's museum
The library’s museum

Since 1972, the library has also published a journal titled Anali Gazi Husrev-begove biblioteke, of which free copies are available online. The informative journal highlights the historical research of scholars from the area. Although the journal is written in Bosnian, researchers can render the text searchable and then copy the text into Google Translate for a relatively functional translation.

Future Plans and Rumors

The library will officially open to researchers on January 15, 2014. Some of the protocol listed above will inevitably change as the library streamlines and refines its procedures. As stated earlier, the library hopes to reintroduce a new computer catalog on its website and even provide researchers the chance to request copies remotely.

Contact information

Gaza Husrefbeg no. 46  Sarajevo 71000 Bosnia and Herzegovina

info@ghb.ba

Phone: +387 33238152, +387 33 264 960

Fax: +387 33205525

Resources and Links

Gazi Husrev Begova Biblioteka main site

Annals of Gazi Husrev Begova Library

23 December 2013

Nir Shafir is a doctoral candidate at UCLA researching the intellectual history of the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Cite this: Nir Shafir, “Gazi Husrev Begova Library,” HAZINE, 23 Dec 2013,  https://hazine.info/2013/12/23/ghb_library/

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Central Zionist Archive

Written by Liora R. Halperin

The Central Zionist Archive (hereafter CZA) in Jerusalem is the main archival resource for scholars researching the history of the Zionist movement, both within Palestine/Israel and internationally, and the history of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) during the British Mandate and late Ottoman periods. Any scholar researching a topic that relates, either directly or indirectly, to the Jewish community in pre-state Palestine or the international institutions of the Zionist movement (e.g. the World Zionist Organization, the United Israel Appeal, or the Jewish Agency) will find the CZA to be an important archive.

The exterior of the Central Zionist Archive
The exterior of the Central Zionist Archive

History

The Central Zionist Archive was founded in Berlin in 1919 as the archive of the Zionist Movement; its goal was to collect the documentation of the branches of the Zionist movement located around the world, as well as the personal archives of key Zionist leaders. The first director of the archive, Georg Herlitz, began ordering the archive according to the organizational structure of the various offices that produced the documents in the collection. In the wake of the Nazi rise to power in 1933, the archive was moved to Israel and opened to the public in 1934. At this point, the collection’s focus expanded well beyond the history and bureaucratic activities of the global Zionist movement to include also the history of the Yishuv and Jewish settlement in Palestine. Alex Bein, the long-serving director of the archive, worked to realize the expansion of the collection as well as the transfer of Theodor Herzl’s archive to Palestine in 1937. Bein also gathered the personal archives of several other early Zionist figures. After being located for decades in the basement of the Zionist institutional offices on King George Street, the archive was moved into its current location in 1987.

Collection

Next to the Israel State Archives, the Central Zionist Archive is the largest archive in Israel. The Central Zionist Archive has, according to one estimate, about 80 million documents—a quantity which one writer described in 2007 as “ten kilometers of Zionism” (Anat Banin, “The Treasure Vault of the Jewish People” The Jewish Magazine, Hanukkah 2007). The CZA contains the archives of, among other bodies, the committees, subcommittees, and offices of the World Zionist Organization, as well as the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, the United Israel Appeal (Keren Ha-Yesod), and the Jewish National Council (Va‘ad ha-Le’umi). It also holds the records of other Zionist organizations and institutions in countries around the world and in Palestine/Israel, the records of Zionist Congresses, and over 1500 personal archives as well as extensive collections of periodicals, images, and maps. Most of these documents were produced in bureaucratic offices, mainly in the twentieth century, with a smaller number of documents from the late nineteenth century and a growing collection oftwenty-first-century collections from currently active Zionist organizations around the world. Approximately one-third of these documents are from the period of the Holocaust, making the CZA an important source for materials pertaining to Zionist activity during the Second World War. It also has a large collection of newspapers, maps, and half a million photographs and negatives. The CZA also has a unit for family research, and charges a fee of 100 shekels for individuals and 150 for institutions to look into immigration records, primarily for those who entered the country between 1919 and 1974. It also possesses a large book collection.

A photograph from the CZA collections, this one of women at a public water tap in 1933
A photograph from the CZA collections, this one of women at a public water tap in 1933

The contents of the CZA’s collections and sub-collections are listed on the archive’s website, which was updated relatively recently and is user-friendly. Researchers are advised to use the online lists and come on the first day of research with an initial list of materials they wish to order.

It should be noted that the documents held in the Central Zionist archive, with a few exceptions, were those either created or received by the Zionist movement, or, more specifically, associates of the Zionist Organization, as opposed to affiliates of the Labor Zionist or Revisionist movements. A wide range of organizations associated with the Zionist labor movement including MAPAI, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza‘ir, the Kibbutz HaMe’uhad, the Histadrut, as well as the archives of the Revisionist Movement and of local municipalities, are held in other organizational or municipal archives located around Israel. Moreover, while the Central Zionist Archive is a central archive for the history of pre-state Zionism and the proto-state institutions of the Yishuv, the archives of the British mandatory government in Palestine are not held at the Central Zionist Archive, but rather at the Israel State Archives, where they were transferred after the creation of the state. A basic understanding of the structure and political diversity of the Zionist movement is essential to predict whether a given document or collection is likely to be held at the CZA or a separate archive elsewhere in Israel.

While the CZA holds materials from the Jewish community of Palestine up to 1948, it also contains and continues to collect the documents of certain international Zionist organizations outside the direct purview of the Israeli state. Given the worldwide nature of the Zionist movement, the archive contains materials from all major sites of Zionist movement activity including Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and South America. It contains materials from Palestine and from other Middle Eastern locations where the Zionist movement was active. Given the global reach and extent of these materials, the archive has important information on other topics, for example, global Jewish communities, resistance to Zionism, major events in Jewish history, the Arab population of Palestine, etc. However, visitors should plan their research mindful of the explicitly political and ideological logic—chronicling the history of the Zionist movement—by which the collection was assembled. The bulk of the collection is in Hebrew, but Zionist records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are more likely to be in German, and the records and correspondence of Zionist organizations around the world will likely be in the state languages of their respective countries.

Research Experience

The collections are organized, by and large, with reference to a document’s institutional place of production. In other words, the structure of the collections follows the structure of the institutions from which they came. Each top-level archival designation refers to a different institution. Some of the largest are the Va’ad Ha-Le’umi (Jewish National Council, archive code J), the Jewish Agency (archive code S), the Jewish National Fund (archive code KKL), Keren Ha-Yesod (United Israel Appeal, archive code KH), Zionist Organization Offices in various cities (archive code Z), and the Zionist Commission (archive code L). The number following the initial letter usually refers to a particular office or committee within the organization (e.g. J2 or S25). The number following the slash is the folder number. Personal archives have designations starting with the letter A. Although it is possible to find files by keyword, it is helpful to pay attention to the top-level letter and number for any given source in order to understand accurately its bureaucratic origin.

There are two basic ways to access catalogs. The computerized catalog is the main way to search for files, and one can search by keyword, as well as by year and other parameters. The operation of the computerized catalog is not immediately intuitive, and researchers should plan to ask for help from the reading room staff.

The second way to search the collections are through the bound volumes for each archival unit, which are organized by letter and are located to the left of the main desk in the reading room. Some of these volumes are missing, but if the one you need is on the shelf, the low-tech browsing method can be a useful way to understand the overall organization of each archival unit. Researchers normally request material through the computer system. In the event that the computer system is inoperable, researchers may continue to make requests using the paper slips. In my experience, computer outages are not uncommon, but this issue may have been resolved.

Thanks to support from the Judaica Division of the Harvard University library, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and the Claims Convention, the organization that distributes and allocates the funds of German Holocaust reparation payments to Israel, the CZA is digitizing its collections and researchers should expect that a good proportion of their documents will be viewed not on paper but on the computer terminals located in the reading room. Digitized documents are not always high quality, and, except for maps and other full-color documents, scans are in black and white. It is therefore occasionally difficult to read documents. Moreover, the functions for zooming and moving between pages are sometimes frustrating and the overall experience of dealing with scanned documents may be more difficult and less efficient than handling paper documents. In cases where the digital copies of documents are illegible, one can request paper files, but there is not an organized or streamlined procedure for such requests.

There are five pull times over the course of the day: 9:00, 10:00, 11:30, 13:00, 14:00. Five items (a book, a folder, etc.) may be requested at each of these times, for a maximum of twenty-five items over the course of a day. This means that researchers who intend to look at a large number of files will need several days before all their files can be brought. However, once a set of files is requested, it can be stored on a hold shelf indefinitely as long as you are still working with it. Files that are scanned can be accessed at any time, so it makes sense to start the day focusing on what files need to be ordered, and then work with scanned files while waiting for the paper files to arrive.

Central Zionist Archive 2
Files, waiting for the researcher…

The reading room staff are helpful. It is important for researchers to enter with the mindset that they need to continue asking questions if they find the initial responses insufficient. The reading room staff speaks some English but researchers who do not know Hebrew often find this to be a real impediment to their research. It is also not a bad idea to ask other archive users for help if the archive staff is away from the desk. The reading room staff, though they can answer questions about the procedures of ordering files or making copies, are not the ones to answer research questions or questions about the organization of the archive. Instead, researchers should turn to Batia Leshem, Head of Institutional Archives, or Rochelle Rubenstein, Deputy Director of Archival Matters, for those sorts of conversations. Their offices, as well as the offices of other archivists, are located one level below the reading room. Ask at the security desk in the lobby for specific directions to their offices.

The reading room is sufficiently comfortable. It tends to have enough room for the number of researchers who are normally working there without feeling either empty or overcrowded. It is air-conditioned. Researchers are asked to deposit their belongings in a locker outside and not bring in food or water. There is not an extremely rigorous search process in this regard but researchers should be prepared to abide by these regulations.

There are a wide range of reference volumes in the reading room itself, including dictionaries between Hebrew and a variety of other languages, a range of different historical and biographical encyclopedias, and a range of books about the history of the Zionist movement.

Access

The archive is open between 8:00 and 15:30, Sunday through Thursday. Users should be aware that the archive is closed for all major Jewish and Israeli national holidays, including often the whole day or half day of the eve of a holiday. Given the seasonal arrangement of holidays, this means that researchers planning travel in September-October and April-June in particular should consult a calendar and make sure that they are not planning research during a period of multiple holiday closures. In addition, the archive closes for a break in mid-August (call ahead before you come since closure information is not always posted on the website).

Access to the archive is granted after the submission of a short application. Researchers should make an application appointment and come to the archive with their Israeli identification number or foreign passport number.. Researchers have gained access without a formal letter of introduction, but it is not a bad idea to have one, especially for doctoral students. Once one is in the system, one does not have to fill out subsequent paperwork for future visits, even if one is working on an entirely different project, but it is helpful to consult with the archive staff to orient oneself around each new topic.

The archive is wheelchair accessible.

Reproductions

Researchers are asked to pay (as of 2012) 40 agorot per page for photographs taken on a personal digital camera. This is charged through self-reporting. It is useful to be able to customize one’s own images, zoom or crop as desired. Also, this is the cheapest form of reproduction available.

If one wishes to have photocopies made of paper files, they must be marked on a special ordering sheet and cost 1 shekel per page. They are normally ready within a week.

Documents that have been scanned cost 1.50 shekel per page if printed and 2 shekalim per page if emailed and they must be ordered and take some time to arrive (this is another reason why it is often a boon to chance upon files that have not yet been scanned that you can photograph with your own camera).

Transportation and Food

The CZA is located directly across from the Jerusalem Central Bus Station and next door to the Binyane Ha-Umah International Convention Center. The CZA is extremely well serviced by public transit. The light rail makes a stop outside the Central Bus Station and any bus, whether in the city or inter-city, that serves the Central Bus Station will do (from the bus station cross Jaffa Road and Zalman Shazar Ave. Follow Josef Herlitz Rd off of Zalmar Shazar Ave to the right of the Convention Center to get there.) In addition, it is useful to know that it is only about a twenty-minute walk between the Central Zionist Archive and the National Library at Hebrew University’s Giv’at Ram campus. This proximity between institutions is useful to maximize one’s working hours, as the CZA closes at 15:30, while the National Library remains open until 19:45.

There are a couple food options near the Central Zionist Archive. A small food cart on Zalman Shazar Ave. near the bus stops sells snacks and basic prepared sandwiches of poor quality. The other option is crossing over to the Central Bus Station, which has a food court with decent fast-food style options. The bus station is also a reasonably pleasant place to get coffee or a pastry and it has free wi-fi and various shops. If you want to make the most of the research hours between 8:00 and 15:30, however, the best idea is to pack a lunch.

Miscellaneous:

The archive occasionally hosts lectures and symposia related to topics in the history of the Zionist movement. Sometimes it also organizes small exhibits in its lobby space.

Future Plans and Rumors

The archive plans to continue digitizing files.

Contact information

Website: www.zionistarchives.org.il

Address: 4 Zalman Shazar Avenue, Jerusalem

Director: Yigal Sitry

Phone number: 972-2-620-4800

Fax: 972-2-620-4837

Main contact email: cza@wzo.org.il

Other emails and phone numbers: 

Academic Director Dr. Motti Friedman 02-620-4803 motif@jazo.org.il
Administrative Director Gili Simha​ ​02-6204800 ​ gilis@wzo.org.il​
Deputy director for archival matters Rochelle Rubinstein​ 02-6204816 rocheller@wzo.org.il​

Heads of Departments:

Institutional archives Batia Leshem 02-6204818 batial@wzo.org.il
Private archives Simone Schliachter 02-6204817 simones@wzo.org.il
Photograph Collections Anat Banin 02-6204825 anatb@wzo.org.il
Graphic Collections and Maps Nechama Kanner 02-6204810 nechamaka@wzo.org.il

Resources and Links:

Search catalog online

3 December 2013

Liora R. Halperin is assistant professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on Jewish cultural history, Jewish-Palestinian relations in Palestine and Israel, language ideology and policy, and the politics surrounding nation formation in Palestine in the years leading up to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Her first book, tentatively titled Babel in Zion: Hebrew and the Politics of Language in Palestine, will be published by Yale University Press in 2014. 

Cite this: Liora R. Halperin, “Central Zionist Archive,” HAZINE, https://hazine.info/2013/12/03/central-zionist-archive/, 3 Dec 2013

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Tahrir Documents

Written by Alex Winder

Tahrir Documents is a collection of pamphlets, newsletters, signs, poems, and other texts gathered in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, between March 2011 and May 2012. The physical documents are housed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library. However, all documents are available online at www.TahrirDocuments.org as scanned PDF files with accompanying English translations. The archive seeks to create a record of the print culture of the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak and its aftermath.

Tahrir Square, January 25, 2012: an archive in the making
Tahrir Square, January 25, 2012: an archive in the making

History

Tahrir Documents was founded in 2011 through the efforts of a group of American graduate students in Cairo and explicitly states its lack of affiliation “with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise.” Generally speaking, documents were gathered once a week on Fridays, when they were distributed to crowds in Tahrir Square. They were then scanned and translated by volunteers, primarily Egyptians and Americans, a number of whom were students of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA). The founders of Tahrir Documents intended the archive to illustrate the richness and diversity of print culture in Tahrir Square at a time when media discourse on the “Egyptian Revolution” gave primacy to the impact of online social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Further, translating these documents into English represented an attempt to give the diverse and polyvalent texts available in Tahrir Square a wider English-speaking readership. Efforts to collect and translate documents continued through May 2012, at which point no further documents were added to the collection.

Collection

The collection includes a wide range of documents collected in and around Tahrir Square from spring 2011 to spring 2012, including newsletters and broadsheets, pamphlets, announcements, advertisements, and poetry. The archive also includes a small number of largely text-based signs held by protestors at Tahrir Square. Though most of the documents are stand-alone pieces, there are several newsletters of which multiple issues were collected and translated. Each document exists in the original along with a full English language translation. The date of collection and of translation are included on the Tahrir Documents website.

The Tahrir Documents website includes 567 documents. In this respect it differs from other efforts to document and archive the Egyptian uprising of 2011 and the events that followed, such as University on the Square, R-Shief, or the Committee to Document the 25th January Revolution, which include a much wider range of material (electronic media, photographs, oral histories, music, and so on). The archive’s self-imposed limits are generally speaking a boon for researchers in that they result in a relatively coherent collection—one knows, for example, that all of these documents were produced in Egypt and were physically present in the space of Tahrir Square on the date collected—but the archive’s discontinuation in May 2012 can be frustrating in light of subsequent events in Egypt.

The Research Experience

All documents in the collection are digitized and available online, making them easily available to researchers throughout the world. Scans or photographs of the original documents are posted with translations on the Tahrir Documents website and can be downloaded by users. Documents are posted in chronological order according to translation date and are also divided into seven main categories according to subject: Revolution, Politics, Solidarity, Culture, Constitution, Regime, and Religion. Each category includes a number of sub-categories, and documents are frequently listed under multiple categories or sub-categories. Most useful, perhaps, is the ability to search the full texts of translations for the entire collection. Unfortunately, it is not possible to conduct searches in Arabic. As the documents were translated by a large group of volunteers, some inconsistencies in translation or transliteration do at times crop up; for the most part, however, this is not a huge hurdle (most names and places are transliterated in modified International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies style, for example). In general, the interface is easy to use and accessing the documents poses no difficulties.

Broadly speaking, these documents would be of interest to researchers of post–January 2011 Egypt, especially the political culture of Tahrir Square. Those whose focus extends to Arab political culture more generally will also find rich primary material, as the documents include political tracts, manifestos, and explanatory notes from political currents ranging from salafi to revolutionary socialist. Indeed, given the location where these documents were collected, it is not surprising that the vast majority are explicitly political in content; however, the location-specific—rather than subject-specific—method of collection has resulted in the inclusion of some surprising and unusual pieces. Those more interested in Egyptian popular culture, for example, will also find poems, fiction, and advertisements collected here.

Sample document on TahrirDocuments.org
Sample document on TahrirDocuments.org

Access

The Tahrir Documents web site is easily accessible. Those who want to access the original documents must go to the Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA. Visitors have to register and documents are delivered in one to two days. The Department of Special Collections is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, except during holidays; non-UCLA visitors must be over eighteen years old and present a government-issued photo identification to obtain an access-only card from the circulation desk at the Young Research Library.

Upcoming News and Rumors

The online component of Tahrir Documents will officially migrate to a UCLA library website in the coming months. This transition will bring with it a new interface and metadata, which should allow for new ways of searching and filtering results.

Contact information

Tahrir Documents

Email: tahrirdocuments@gmail.com

Charles E. Young Research Library, Department of Special Collections

Email: mspec-coll@library.ucla.edu

Phone: 310-825-4988

Resources and Links

Tahrir Documents

Interview with librarian David Hirsch about the collection of the documents

November 22, 2013

About the author: Alex Winder is a doctoral candidate at New York University working on twentieth-century Palestinian history.

Cite this: Alex Winder, “Tahrir Documents,” HAZİNE, 22/11/2103, https://hazine.info/2013/11/22/tahrir-documents/

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Red Crescent Archives (Turkey)

by Chris Gratien and Seçil Yılmaz

The Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay, formerly Hilâl-i Ahmer) is a charity organization founded during the late Ottoman period on the model of the Red Cross societies. Its activities in the areas of medicine, care for prisoners of war, and other social services, particularly during the World War I period and the early years of the Turkish Republic, make the archives of this organization a vital resource for historians interested in medicine, public health, war, and charity alike during this formative period. Recently, its archives in Ankara have been made public through a searchable online catalog, opening an exciting new field of research for Ottoman and Turkish historians.

Source: kızılay.org
Source: kızılay.org

History

The Ottoman Red Crescent was founded in 1868 partly in response to the experience of the Crimean War, in which disease overshadowed battle as the main cause of death and suffering among Ottoman soldiers. It was the first Red Crescent society of its kind and one of the most important charity organizations in the Muslim world. Its role in battlefield care made it integral to late Ottoman war efforts. The Red Crescent also played a critical role in the development of the young Turkish Republic’s health institutions.

In 2006, a major overhaul of these archives was initiated to make them available to researchers. This includes a cataloging effort similar to the organization of the Ottoman State Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), wherein each document is cataloged, described, and shortly thereafter digitized. Most of the documents pertaining to the 1868-1911 period have been cataloged and efforts continue for later periods.

Red Crescent Relief Efforts in Jerusalem c1917 (source: US Library of Congress)
Red Crescent Relief Efforts in Jerusalem c1917 (source: US Library of Congress)

Collection

The Red Crescent archives contain a variety of documents pertaining to health and health services in the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey. For the Ottoman period (including World War I), these documents almost exclusively concern budget and funding issues along with services pertaining to war, particularly the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War (93 Harbi), the Italian invasion of Libya, the Balkan Wars, and of course, the First World War. There is very little overlap between the collections of the Ottoman archives and the Red Crescent.

In addition to offering a glimpse at late Ottoman medical institutions, social historians of the Ottoman Empire will also be drawn to documentation regarding Ottoman prisoners of war, which includes letters about and by Ottoman soldiers. The Red Crescent boasts over 300,000 POW cards from all sides of the conflict containing the names and origins of prisoners, their place of capture, and sometimes other biographical or health information. The collection also contain letters and requests from prisoners of war during the conflict. In this regard, researchers of other regions such as Europe or South Asia will find these archives useful as the Red Crescent was the intermediary between the Allies and Allied prisoners held in Ottoman territories.

During the Republican period and even during the War of Independence, the Red Crescent took on an increasingly national character and expanded its function to issues of health in the cities and countryside. Though it has not been well-studied, the contents of the collection indicate that the Red Crescent was part and parcel of early Republican health services in rural settings, where relatively few institutions had been established by the Ottoman state. Here, there is somewhat more overlap with the collections of the Başbakanlık Republican Archives, though the Red Crescent may prove to be much richer than the former in the area of health as its catalog grows.

In addition to archival documents, there is also a decent collection of visual materials such as photographs and postcards.

The collections include several varieties of documents, including hospital reports, health statistics, personal letters, account books, and reports by health inspectors. Due to the organization of the digital catalog, researchers cannot access files or folders in their sequential order. The archive’s online search function only provides individual files with no connection to surrounding material. In order to identify documents of a particular variety or source, researchers will need to identify particular boxes of interest or the names of particular officials or organizations associated with the research topic and search using these terms (more on this below).

The contents of the Red Crescent’s collections are largely unexplored by researchers and not fully known to the organization itself. According to the archive’s website, there are some 1500 boxes and 550 bound notebooks in Ottoman and French from the period beginning with the organizations founding until the language reforms in 1928. However, it is our experience that the contents are a bit more varied than this. For example, this sample document that we have provided originates from the Egyptian Red Crescent and is entirely in Arabic.

Researchers will need a command of modern Turkish to be effective, though of course, most of the documents from the Ottoman period are in Ottoman Turkish.

Stacks
The original documents are stored at the archives, but researchers will not be issued original documents. Rather, researchers must consult materials in the digital environment unless they have not been digitized. (Source: kizilay.org)

The Research Experience:

For researchers, the main question regarding the Red Crescent archives is whether or not to go to the physical archives itself. The archive is located in the Etimesgut neighborhood of the Ankara suburbs, and while researchers are free to work there, there is no proper workspace. Moreover, researchers will be expected to order documents through the website and receive photocopies by mail regardless of whether they go there or not. Thus, it is possible for the entire process to be handled through correspondence. Here, we will make the argument for a visit to the archives in person and explain in which situations this is necessary.

Since this archive is relatively hard to use and access, a trip to Red Crescent Archives is probably not worth your time unless you are working on specific issues related to health, medicine, prisoners, or war, though it is always worth searching the catalog to see what might be available remotely.

There are several factors that will encourage committed scholars to make a visit arising from the limitations of the catalog. Many of the descriptions are short or obscure. Some, for example, only mention the individual who composed them, making them utterly impossible to find via keyword search unless one knows to search for that individual. Moreover, the one sentence description may prove inadequate in determining whether or not to purchase the fairly pricy photocopies (more on this below). Going to the archive in person will allow you to see entire folders (which represent the original file boxes) of the documents, which usually have a shared theme or point of origin. This also enables you to get a closer look at the actual contents of documents before ordering them and gives you access to some paper documents that have not yet been digitized. If you are already in Turkey, a visit to the archive will ultimately save you a great deal of time and money, and it will surely yield better research results.

Kızılay Kütüpanesi
Red Crescent Library and Museum (from kızılay.org)

Access

The archive is open weekdays from 9:00 to 18:00 and closes for a one-hour lunch break at noon. Researchers are asked to contact the archivists before coming, as completing the application and request process by email will expedite the research process (information here). A passport is sufficient to gain access, but bring a second form of ID to leave with the guards. Laptops are forbidden as is photography. Spoken Turkish is absolutely essential to use the archive effectively, even though some documents pertaining to foreign POWs will be in English and French. The staff is extremely friendly and helpful, and you will likely be the only researcher there on any given day. Wheelchair access may be an issue as the reading room is on the second floor.

Reproductions

The archive’s reproduction fees are relatively expensive, as revenue generated from photocopies are considered a donation to the society. Photocopies cost 50 kuruş per pose, while scans of all documents cost 10 TL per pose. The archive does not fulfill reproduction requests on site, so researchers must provide a mailing address in order to receive copies or scans. Requests are fulfilled promptly and copies are generally obtained within one or two weeks.

Transportation and Food

Although there is a neighborhood in the heart of Ankara named Kızılay, researchers will be disappointed to find the site of the Red Crescent archives is in a much more remote location in Etimesgut, a northern suburb of Ankara accessible mainly by minibus. It occupies two buildings at the back of a large site operated by the Red Crescent, so it will be normal to be a little disoriented during the first visit. There is essentially nowhere to eat near the site. There is a serviceable cafeteria used by the employees, who will likely offer you to accompany them to lunch if you are just there for a day or two. In general though, we recommend researchers pack a lunch.

Miscellaneous

The library staff will give researchers a short tour of the modest museum and library at the archives upon their visit. This museum contains some important visual materials, artifacts, and books and publications by and about the organization that may be consulted by researchers. If you are doing extensive research at the Red Crescent, particularly on the institution itself, inquire about the contents of the museum as it may contain some very interesting materials.

Future Developments

As the digitization and cataloging process is ongoing, it is always worth checking in periodically to see if anything on your topic has been added.

Contact information

Address: Arşiv Yönetimi Bölümü

Türk Kızılayı Caddesi  No:6

Etimesgut – ANKARA

Archives Department Administrator

Hande UZUN KÜLCÜ

Tel: +90 (312) 293 64 26

handeu@kizilay.org.tr

Fax: +90 (312) 293 64 36

Resources and Links:

Red Crescent Archives Catalog (in Turkish)

Red Crescent Library Catalog

Full PDF of Ahmet Mithat Efendi’s 1879 work on the Red Crescent’s Foundation (in Ottoman)

Sample Document

 

About the Authors

Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University

Seçil Yılmaz is a doctoral candidate at City University of New York.

Cite this: Chris Gratien and Seçil Yılmaz, “Red Crescent Archives (Turkey),” Hazine, 13 November 2013,  https://hazine.info/2013/11/13/turkish-red-crescent-kizilay-archives-ankara/

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The National Archives (United Kingdom)

The National Archives is the official state repository for the United Kingdom and is situated in Kew Gardens, London. Among the archive’s 11 million records, comprising hundreds of millions of documents, are vast numbers of items relating to the history of interactions between the peoples of the British Isles and the Middle East from the Crusades to colonial rule. As well as documents in European languages, The National Archives contains a significant collection of documents in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Persian.

British Archives
The National Archives (United Kingdom). Photo courtesy of Michael Talbot.

History

The National Archives holds records of the English and subsequently the British state dating back to the eleventh century. Often still known by one of its former names, the Public Record Office (PRO), the archive owes its current form to a law passed in 1838 aimed at gathering the scattered and often poorly-kept documents of the British government and judicial system. The current collection represents the merger by 2006 of four major holders of British archival records: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office (founded in 1786); the Public Record Office (1838); the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1869); and the Office of Public Sector Information (2005). These collections in their sum cover almost every conceivable aspect of the United Kingdom’s foreign, domestic, military, and civil history. In addition, it holds a number of papers and manuscripts donated by private individuals. The Public Record Office moved from its original location in the City of London to the current building in Kew Gardens in 1977, and following the formation of The National Archives, all relevant documents were moved there, aside from a substantial portion kept in offsite storage in a former salt mine in Cheshire. Once the preserve of specialist academic researchers, the National Archives is today hugely popular with amateur historians and genealogists.

Collection

The material available for historians of the Middle East is extensive. A huge variety of manuscripts, correspondence, financial records, printed texts, registers, and memoranda shed light onto British trade, diplomacy, warfare, and colonialism in the Middle East. As well as English-language documents, there are a significant number of items in French, Italian, and Latin. Moreover, there is a collection of generally unexamined documents in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Persian interspersed amongst the registers, and sometimes separated into different files. Due to the scale and variety of the archive, only the main relevant collections for Middle East researchers will be discussed here.

The classifications to be consulted largely depend on time period and area of research. For mediaevalists, there are around 300 cataloged records relating to the Crusades and early trade with the Middle East and Levant in the Chancery (C), and Special Collection (SC) series, with documents dating from as early as the 1210s.

Records relating to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa begin to appear in significant numbers from the early sixteenth century with the beginnings of a significant trade, and especially after the formal establishment of relations between England and the Ottoman Empire in 1580. Several hundred volumes and loose documents relating to trade and diplomacy between the 1570s and 1770s are held in the State Papers (SP), with diplomatic correspondence in SP97 and mercantile records in SP105 and SP110. These include a number of records in Ottoman Turkish, or their translations in Italian. There are a number of extracted documents relating to this period under the series Extracted Documents (EXT), including maps and original letters from Ottoman sultans to British monarchs. Further records on trade and piracy can be found in the Admiralty collection (ADM). Some references to early political and commercial interests in Iran can also be found in that series.

Administrative reform from the 1780s saw the creation of new government ministries including the Foreign Office. This reform, coinciding with the beginnings of methodical archiving, meant that the number of documents produced and archived increased dramatically from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Documents relating to the Ottoman Empire between 1779 until 1906 are generally held in FO78, comprising an astonishing 5,491 thick volumes of correspondence, intelligence, and administrative documents relating to diplomacy and trade produced and received by the embassy in Istanbul and the consular establishments in the Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant, and North Africa. Some consular establishments have their own separate codes (e.g. Aleppo is FO861). The FO series continues into the post-Ottoman period, covering British diplomatic establishments across the Middle East into the 1970s. For instance, FO141 contains 1,521 volumes of correspondence of the British embassy and consulates in Egypt between 1815 and 1973. It is also in this later period that a large amount of material can be found relating to Iran, following the establishment of formal relations in 1807. The main consular posts have their own codes, although some 734 volumes of general correspondence between 1807 and 1905 can be found in FO60. These series contain a number of Persian documents within the registers.

The records of the Colonial Office (CO) are the main resource for researchers interested in British colonial rule in the Middle East. For instance, CO730 contains 178 volumes relating to the Iraq Mandate, and CO733 comprises 495 volumes concerning the Palestine Mandate. There are a large number of sources on British oil interests in Iran and the Persian Gulf in the Ministry of Power’s series (POWE), as well as in the diplomatic correspondence. Additional sources on colonialism can be found in a whole host of other series, including the Board of Trade (BT) and War Office (WO). The private papers of major and minor colonial officials and administrators are available in paper or on microfilm, such as those of Earl Kitchener (PRO30/57). There are a number of records relating to a number of locally recruited military, police, and colonial forces, from the Macedonian Mule Corps (WO405) to the Aden Police (CO1037).

There are a number of introductory subject guides available on The National Archives website. However, for most academic researchers, learning to use the archive’s catalog effectively is the key to research success.

Research Experience

Catalogs and Searches: The Research and Enquiries Room on the first floor hosts a large number of computer terminals, and also offers free wi-fi. The archive’s new catalog, Discovery, enables a variety of search techniques. As well as simple keyword searches, results can be narrowed down by series code, date, and subject area. The browsing function is very helpful for researchers getting to grips with their series of records.

Although the catalog is remarkably comprehensive, most of the descriptions are rather general, giving little sense of the content, particularly those marked ‘general correspondence’. Some early modern and a smaller number of later series do contain document-by-document descriptions, but these are comparatively few in number.  For those researching more specialised topics, this can mean labor-intensive searching over a large number of records.  For those in search of Arabic or Ottoman Turkish documents, these are often kept in their original setting in the correspondence registers, but on occasion they have been extracted into separate files without any context.

The relative comprehensiveness of the catalog does not necessarily equate to a completeness of records. For instance, there has long been a suspicion that documents relating to atrocities committed by the British or under British supervision in the colonies, including their possessions in the Middle East, have been withheld from the public. This suspicion proved to be well-founded, and in 2013 after a legal challenge, a significant amount of material was released from a secret Foreign Office archive at Hanslope Park, including some relating to Aden, Cyprus, and Palestine. Doubtless there are still more records hidden away.

Digitized Documents: Some 5% of documents in The National Archives have been digitized, and the number is gradually increasing.  Many of the more popular series relating to military or family history are only available in digital format. A significant number of the archive’s microfilmed series have been digitized and are available to download for free, including a number of series of interest for Middle East researchers, such as the records of the Arab Bureau (FO882).

Original Documents: Up to six files may be ordered from an off-site location via The National Archives website. Next-day advanced requests must be submitted by 17:00 the day before the planned visit. In the archives themselves, orders can be made from the computer terminals in the Research and Enquiries Room and in the reading rooms. It is necessary to reserve a seat in order to request documents, and documents will be delivered into a cabinet marked with the seat number.

The majority of research takes place in the first floor reading room, and researchers can select seats in group areas, quiet areas, and light areas for better photography. It is advisable for those intending to take photographs to arrive at the archive at a relatively early hour, as those seats are in great demand. Some older and oversized documents will be delivered to the second floor reading room.

Most orders take less than an hour to be completed, and in practice even in busy periods it can take as little as half an hour between ordering the document and receiving it. Up to twenty-one documents can be ordered per day. For researchers requiring bulk orders, at least two days’ notice is required and the completion of an online form. It is best to discuss this order with staff at the first floor reading room’s help desk before it is placed.

Library: The National Archives Research Library, situated on the first floor, contains some 65,000 volumes on a variety of subjects, and its holdings include works on Middle Eastern history, bibliographies, and subject guides. The catalog can be searched by subject or through keywords.

Help and staff: The National Archives is incredibly user-friendly. There is a ‘Start Here’ desk on the first floor before entering the reading rooms to help orientate new researchers. On the same floor, there are two help desks: a red desk that specializes in military and family history, and the blue desk that offers advice on political, economic, social, and colonial history. There are a number of computer terminals through which the archive’s online and digitized resources can be accessed.

The staff are generally friendly. However, whilst keen to help, the advice they can offer on specialist research is often limited. Security is strict when entering and leaving the reading rooms. This is aimed at ensuring that no documents are removed, and no prohibited items, such as pens, are brought in. Laptops must be opened, and stationary and cables must be kept in clear plastic bags, which may be searched. Inside the reading rooms, security guards make regular patrols to ensure that documents are being handled in an appropriate manner. Guides on how to handle the documents and other rules of the reading room are prominently displayed by the computer terminals and on the desks.

Access

The National Archives is open Tuesdays to Saturdays. The opening hours are between 09:00 and 19:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays with last document orders at 17:00, and between 09:00 and 17:00 on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with last document orders at 16:15. The archives are closed on public holidays, full details of which can be found on the website.

It is necessary to have a reader’s ticket to view original documents. To obtain a reader’s ticket, new researchers must go to the registration room on the second floor to fill in an online form, and bring two forms of identification, one that provides proof of name with a signature, and another that shows proof of address. Acceptable forms of documentation are listed on the website. Digitized material and the library collection can be viewed without a reader’s ticket.

All public areas in The National Archives are fully wheelchair accessible. A number of dedicated computer terminals exist for partially sighted researchers.

Reproductions

Researchers can take their own photographs of documents for free, and are encouraged to do so. Flash photography is strictly forbidden. There are a number of seats in the first floor reading room with camera stands. Some kinds of document cannot be photographed, including those that are fragile or non-public records, but this will be made clear on ordering.

Printed copies of microfilm documents can be made for 25p per page. There are a number of machines on the first floor through which cash can be added to the reader’s ticket for such copying, and the staff will help first-timers through the self-service printing process. The archive offers its own paper and digital copying services. Prices vary, and it is necessary to submit a form online to receive a quote. Orders are usually fulfilled in less than two weeks, although this varies depending on the type and quantity of document being ordered.

Transportation, food, and other facilities

The National Archives is situated in Kew Gardens, some ten miles / sixteen kilometers from Central London. The easiest way to access the archives is by the London Underground. The walk from the station to the archives is well signposted, and takes less than ten minutes. Kew Gardens Underground Station is served by the District Line and London Overground. For researchers staying in Central London, the District Line is by far the easier option, and the journey takes around forty-five minutes. The Transport for London Journey Planner is very helpful in planning routes to the archives from anywhere in London.

The archive contains a café and restaurant on the ground floor, which is reasonably priced for the area. Most teas are around £1.50 and coffees over £2. Lunch with soup, a main dish, and desert costs around £10. Vegetarian options are available. There are also are a number of cafés, restaurants, and pubs around the station.

The ground floor also hosts a number of other facilities, including a free cloakroom with lockers. There is an interesting museum that houses a number of archival treasures, as well as a bookshop.

Outside the archive is a large pond frequented by ducks, moorhens, geese, swans, and herons. Outdoor seating is available around the pond, making for very pleasant breaks when the weather permits.

Contact information

Address:

The National Archives

Ruskin Avenue

Kew, Richmond

Surrey

TW9 4DU

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8876 3444

Online: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/

Resources and links

The National Archives home page

Searchable online catalog

Written by Michael Talbot, Teaching Fellow in Ottoman history, University of St. Andrews

Cite this: Michael Talbot, “The National Archives (United Kingdom)”, HAZİNE, 1 November 2013, https://hazine.info/2013/11/01/the-national-archives-united-kingdom/

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Ottoman State Archives

Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (The Ottoman Archives of the Prime Minister’s Office, hereafter “the Ottoman archives”) is the primary repository for state archival documents in Turkey related to the Ottoman Empire. As the only major archive of a pre-modern Muslim state, the archive contains a vast collection of unique documents pertaining to the administration of one of history’s largest empires. After more than a century in the center of the old city, the Ottoman archives were relocated in 2013 to the Kağıthane district of Istanbul.

A view of the Ottoman archives complex in Kağıthane
A view of the Ottoman archives complex in Kağıthane

History

In some ways, the origins of the Ottoman archives extend back as far as the origins of the early Ottoman polity. The present collection contains a few documents from the earliest period up to the reign of Sultan Süleyman in the sixteenth century, at which point the expanding differentiation in bureaucratic function facilitated increased document production. Contemporary scholars only have a general sense of how these records were maintained in the earlier periods, as, by the late eighteenth century, the archival collections were significantly reorganized along new lines, which in many cases have been maintained until today. The organization of these records as a modern archive began in 1847 with the establishment of Hazine-i Evrak. The original building was located on the grounds of the grand vezir’s offices in Gülhane and contained several main groups of documents: the records of the Imperial Council (Divan-i Hümayun) and the records of the grand vezir’s office (Bab-i Ali), as well as the records of the financial departments (Maliye) and cadastral surveys (tapu tahrir defteri). With the establishment of the Republic, the Hazine-i Evrak was transformed into Başvekalet Arşiv Umum Müdürlüğü  (The General Directorate of the Prime Ministry) and eventually the Başbakanlık Arşiv Genel Müdürlüğu. During this period, the records of various nineteenth-century Ottoman offices and administrative authorities were added to the collections. Concurrent with these changes and additions, Turkish scholars took the first steps to classify and catalog the various collections beginning in the 1910s. These early efforts produced a number of classified collections (tasnif) which are still cited according to the name of the scholar who created the catalog. Today the work of cataloging the vast collection continues.

Collections

The collections of the Ottoman archives may be divided broadly between defters (bound notebooks) and evrak (loose papers), whether preserved individually or in larger files. The defters, of which approximately 300,000 are located within the archive, can be further divided between accounting reports—often of financial records or land surveys for tax assessment—and diplomatic records, which contain copies or summaries of outgoing orders and other communications. The evrak, of which approximately 150 million are preserved at the archive, range from original copies of imperial decrees to administrative reports and communications, and even odd notes of low-level bureaucrats.

The early efforts of Turkish scholars to classify the archives focused on organizing and arranging the evrak. Between 1918 and 1921, Ali Emiri sorted 180,361 documents in chronological order and cataloged them according to the reign of the sultan during which they were produced (coded “A.E.”). Shortly thereafter, İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal organized an additional 46, 467 documents according to twenty-three subjects, the largest groups of which concerned financial matters (12,201) and military affairs (8,227) (coded “İ.E.”). In the 1930s, Muallım Cevdet followed İbnülemin’s example and sorted 184,256 documents in sixteen subjects, including military (54,984), charitable foundation record (33,351), and internal affairs (17,468) (coded “C.”).

Since these early efforts, the archive’s staff has largely endeavored to sort and classify documents according to the departments and offices in which they were initially produced. In addition to this work, the archive staff formed a number of special categories which isolate documents according to type; most imperial writs (hatt-ı hümayun), decrees (irade), and charitable foundation records (vakıf) are cataloged in this way. Beginning with the reforms of the Tanzimat period, the breadth and depth of Ottoman administration increased exponentially. This bureaucratic development led to the creation of numerous central and provincial administrative authorities and offices all of which produced their own records.

The archive’s bound notebooks consist of three broad organizational categories. The first category pertains to the records of the Imperial Council (divan) and Grand Vezirate. Of these, the most significant type are the registers of important matters of state (mühimme defteri), which consist of 263 registers covering the period 961-1323/1553-1905, although large portions of the registers for the seventeenth century are no longer extant. These registers report a day-to-day summary of all outgoing correspondence issued from the Imperial Council. The second category of notebooks consists of the cadastral survey registers (tapu tahrir defteri), which contain the land and population surveys from most of the provinces and territories of the Empire. The collection includes approximately 1,153 separate registers, the earliest of which is a tımar register of a sancak in Albania completed in 835/1431. It should be noted that registers pertaining to Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa are not included among the Ottoman archive’s collections. The last category of notebooks contain information related to the financial administration of the empire and consists of registers on income and expenditures, including many salary registers of palace and state employees.

The Ottoman archives also contain a variety of overlapping collections from different archives. The vast majority of the bound registers of the Topkapı Palace Museum Archive are accessible in digital format at the Ottoman archives. The court records (sicillat) of every Ottoman city within the modern borders of Turkey, excluding Istanbul, are available at the archive. (Many of these are also available at İSAM) There are also numerous Ottoman documents from neighboring countries like Russia and Bulgaria. Finally, researchers can also access many of the twentieth-century Turkish Republic documents from the Başbakanlık Cumhuriyet Arşivi in digital format through the Ottoman archive site in Kağıthane, though this requires a separate registration.

For a detailed explanation of the archive’s collections, we suggest researchers consult Osmanlı Arşivi Rehberi, an electronic copy of which may be downloaded at Archive Directorate’s website (see below). The indispensable guide provides a nearly complete listing for most of the Ottoman archive’s collections.

Research Experience

Archive patrons conduct research in either the computer reading room (araştırma odası) or the document viewing room (inceleme odası). The computer reading room contains approximately seventy-five computer stations from which researchers may search for material using the archive’s catalog software. Any of the archive’s material that has been digitized is also accessible from these computer stations. In addition to the archive’s catalog software, the computer reading room also contains more than 1,100 printed volumes of the archive’s catalogs. If the desired material is not available in digital format, researchers may request to consult the original documents, which are made available for consultation in the viewing room. See Original Documents section below.

Catalogs and Searches: The collections of the Ottoman archives are incompletely cataloged in approximately 1,160 volumes. These volumes are organized according to the names of the collection (fon) and sub-collection (alt fon). Entries within each catalog contain a brief description of the document with date (if available).  In addition to these volumes, researchers may search for material from any of the reading room’s seventy-five computer stations. The search tools available through the archive’s software enable patrons to pull up descriptions of any bound notebook (defter), folder (dosya), or file (gömlek) that has been digitally cataloged. Additionally, researchers can search for key terms included in any of the catalog descriptions of the archive’s collections. The Archives Directorate also has a separate searchable online catalog (see below) of the archives collections.

Researchers should exercise due diligence when using the archive’s computer catalog. A simple keyword search may return thousands of results for documents in the archives. Those researching pre-nineteenth century topics may be disappointed to find that there are very few documents for the early modern period whereas those researching modern topics may be fooled into thinking that that every relevant document is listed. The reality is that even for modern documents, much of the material is uncataloged. Researchers should use the printed catalogs available in the computer reading room in order to determine what part of the archive contains relevant material. They can then request folders (dosyalar) or defters for these sections and go through the documents or entries individually. Researchers focusing on earlier periods will have fewer loose documents (evrak) to consult and may have to rely primarily on defters. The majority of these defters have been digitized, although only superficially cataloged. Date (tarih) parameters on the search software will not return any defter results. Therefore, the relevant section of the archive must be selected and researchers should limit search criteria to key terms when looking for defters. In addition, for the early modern period, some of the catalogs for the earlier classified collections have not been transcribed and are only accessible through their pre-script reform published catalogs.

Digitized Documents: If the researcher identifies material that has been digitized, he or she may consult the digitized copy from the computer stations. Generally, these digital photographs have been taken from relatively legible black-and-white photocopies. In some instances, the digitized files consist of more recently produced digital photographs. If digitized copies of the material are illegible, researchers may ask the reading room staff for permission to consult the original documents.

Original Documents: Researchers may request permission to consult non-digitized original documents using the computer terminals in the reading room. Original documents are made available for consultation in the viewing room at regular intervals. Requests that are made before 9:15 in the morning will be fulfilled by 11:30. Requests made before 11:15 will be fulfilled by 13:30, while requests made before 13:30 will be fulfilled by 15:15. Unfortunately requests made after 13:30 on a given day will not be fulfilled until 13:30 the following day. Researchers may request up to four boxes (dosya), twenty-five individual files (gömlek/belge), or five defters. Researchers may keep original materials in a cabinet in the viewing room for up to one week.

Library: Within the viewing room, researchers may consult the archive’s library. The library contains around 15,000 volumes, approximately one-third of which are serial journals. The other 10,000 works include the most important reference materials researchers will need, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a number of catalogs. The library’s catalog can be accessed through the archive’s website, although, as there is no internet access at on site, researchers will not have access to this catalog while working at the archive.  Researchers may browse the library’s shelves or ask the staff to help locate particular volumes.

Accessibility

The Ottoman archives are currently open Monday-Friday 9:00 – 19:00 and Saturdays 9:00 – 17:00, excluding all official Turkish holidays. Although the archive is open until 19:00, researchers must receive their documents before 16:00 and are not allowed to photograph after 17:00. The last call to return documents is 16:00 Researchers may store documents overnight in one of the viewing room’s cabinet. If researchers wish to return the documents to the depot, they must turn them in to the staff before 16:00.

All archive patrons must obtain a valid archive identification card before using any of the archive’s resources. These ID cards are issued upon the staff’s verification of an applicant’s eligibility and completion of a short form, which details a researcher’s contact information and research subject. All Turkish citizens are eligible to access the archives upon presentation of their national identification card. Non-Turkish citizens are eligible to receive an ID upon presentation of their passports with a valid visa or residency permit (ikamet tezkiresi). Identification cards are valid for the entire term of a foreigner’s legal residence in Turkey (as established through the visa or residency permit). Technically researchers are only permitted to request material related to their research subject as described in their application form, although in practical terms there are few restrictions on what materials a researcher may access once he or she has obtained an identification card.

It is quite difficult to conduct research at the Ottoman archives without a decent ability to read and speak Turkish. While the archive’s staff are helpful, most of them only speak Turkish; Fuat Bey, who speaks Arabic as well, is an exception in this regard. Another member of the archive staff also speaks Bosnian. More importantly all catalogs and the computer search system are in Turkish. We advise researchers who do not speak Turkish to ask a Turkish-speaking friend or researcher for help in the archive.

As the archive is located in a newly opened building, it is fully wheelchair accessible.

Transportation and Food

The Ottoman archives are located in the Sadabad neighborhood of Kağıthane municipality. This new archives building, officially opened in June 2013, is less accessible from many parts of Istanbul than the old archive site in Gülhane. The new archive facility is spacious and well organized, but its placement in Sadabad limits its accessibility via public transportation to a handful of bus lines. Travelers coming from Taksim may reach the archives using bus line 48T (Hamidiye Mah.-Taksim) which departs from Taksim. We advise travelers who plan to take this line to depart before 9:30. After this time the frequency of this line diminishes significantly. The fastest way for researchers coming from the Anatolian side to reach the archive is via the Metrobus with a transfer to the 49 or 49N at the Taşıtlar bus stop located next to the Mecidiyeköy Metrobus stop. Both of these bus lines also pass through the middle of Şişli. There are also minibuses that frequently pass the archives, often going to Şişli, 4. Levent, Topkapı (the neighborhood, not the palace), and other locations.

The new location of the archives is also largely devoid of food options. Researchers will find lunch offered in the archive’s cafeteria (yemekhane) between 12:00-13:00. The lunch, offered to all of the employees of the archive administration, costs 5 TL for visitors and consists of a soup, main dish, and side dish. Although the lunch is healthy and sufficient, vegetarians and people with other dietary restrictions may have trouble with the cafeteria’s offerings on most days. In addition to the cafeteria, there is also a cafe in the lobby of the main research building. In addition to coffee and tea, researchers will find a variety of packaged snacks, as well as a few baked goods in the morning (simit and poğaca).

Reproduction Requests and Costs

As of September 2013, copies of digitized and original documents may be obtained for 25 kuruş per pose. Maps, photographs, and other special archival material cost 4.50 TL. There are no limits on the amount of material a researcher may request, although attempts to request entire defters are often rejected. Copies of digitized material may be made directly from a researcher’s account at any of the computer terminals in the reading room. Researchers may request that the archive staff produce a digital copy of original material or they may use their own cameras to take photographs. In either case, researchers need to complete a reproduction request form in the viewing room. Digital copies provided by the archive are given on compact disc. Researchers pay for copies of digitized or original material at the counter of archive’s small bookstore in the lobby. The archive only accepts cash and can provide receipts. Researchers can only request reproductions of archive material by coming to the archive in person.

Temporary Notice

While the majority of the archives’ collections have been relocated from Gülhane and are now available at the new Sadabad location, there are a number of collections which, as of 10 October 2013, are not available to researchers: Bab-ı Defteri (D.), Evkaf Nezareti (EV.), Hazine-i Hassa (HH.), Mabeyn-i Hümayun (MB.), Maliye Nezareti (ML.), Ticaret Nezareti (T.), and the first 200 dossiers of Bab-ı Ali Evrak Odası (BEO.).

Contact Information

Address:

Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü

Osmanlı Arşivi Daire Başkanlığı

İmrahor Cad. Sadabad Mevkii Kağıthane/İSTANBUL

Tel: +90 212 314 90 00 / Fax: +90 212 314 90 25

Email: osmanli@basbakanlik.gov.tr

 

Resources and Links

The website of the BOA may not be accessible from outside of Turkey. This will affect many of the links we provide in this article. 

Ottoman Archives home page

Searchable online catalog of the archive (This catalog is said to provide incomplete results and is not as useful as the one on the archive’s computers.)

Online catalog of the archive’s library

Basic descriptions of the archive’s holdings

For a digital copy of Osmanlı Arşivi Rehberi, see item 108 here.

Written by: Christopher Markiewicz and Nir Shafir

10 October 2013

Cite this: Christopher Markiewicz and Nir Shafir, “The Ottoman State Archives”, HAZİNE, 10 October 2013, https://hazine.info/2013/10/10/basbakanlik-arsivi/

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İSAM

İSAM (İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi) is the best research library in Turkey for Ottoman and Islamic studies. The research center’s strength lies in its combination of a relatively extensive collection of printed volumes with a number of important digitized collections of archival documents. The research center is located in the Bağlarbaşı neighborhood in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul.

The facade of the İSAM library

History

The idea for a research center for Islamic studies developed as an outgrowth of the İslam Ansiklopedisi project of Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı (Turkish Religious Foundation) in the late-1980s. The encyclopedia, which is now nearly finished, printed its first volume in 1988 and now has published forty-two of the forty-four planned volumes covering approximately 18,000 topics related to Islamic studies. In 1988 the Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı established the Islamic Research Center to help facilitate the research of graduate students and scholars who received fellowships from the foundation. In 1993 the encyclopedia project and research center were merged to form Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM). The present location of the research center was established on the campus of 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi in 1988 and has been serving Turkish and international graduate students and scholars ever since.

Collections

İSAM probably has the best collection of printed volumes and serial journals related to Islamic history and religious studies in Turkey. In addition to these collections, the library also has several important digital and special collections.

Printed Volumes and Special Collections:

The library’s printed material includes 237,000 volumes and more than 3,500 serial journals. Religious sciences and Ottoman history constitute the library’s strongest fields, although the library has a good collection of works published in Turkish related to a wide range of disciplines. With respect to religious sciences, the library has many of the most important primary religious texts published in Arabic related to hadith, tafsir, fiqh, kalam, and other Islamic religious disciplines. Secondary literature on these subjects is strongest with respect to works published in Turkish, although the library has a decent collection of works published in English and other foreign languages related to Islamic studies. The library’s other strong area relates to Ottoman studies. Here, the library has an extensive collection of published editions of primary sources, as well as monographs and other scholarly works related to the history, literature, and culture of the Ottoman Empire. While the library’s collection is mostly Turkish, researchers can find many important scholarly works in other languages (mostly English) related to Ottoman studies.

The library’s collection in non-Ottoman Islamic history is considerably weaker. Even so, the library has many of the most important published primary sources in Arabic and Persian and a fair collection of secondary material (again mostly in Turkish). Despite this relative weakness, this portion of İSAM’s collection is still probably the best available in Turkey. The library also has a nice collection of dissertations which have been donated over the years by researchers who have conducted some portion of their graduate research at the center.

One of the unique aspects of the library’s collection is the files it maintains on over 19,000 subjects related to Islamic studies. These files are the product of the research for the İslam Ansiklopedisi entries and contain photocopies of encyclopedic entries, articles, and other references related to the file’s topic.

Lastly, the library has an extensive reference collection and a fair number of serial journals. The reference collection includes all major encyclopedias, bio-bibliographic reference works, and dictionaries researchers will need in the course of their studies. The library’s serial journals focus on scholarly publications related to Islamic studies and Ottoman/Turkish history. In this respect, the library’s journal collection includes many titles from the early twentieth century or from small Turkish journals which are often difficult to find in North American and European research libraries. The shelving organization of these materials is extremely poor. While encyclopedias and other multi-volume works are always shelved together, they are never organized according to volume number. This presents a problem when trying to locate a single volume of a serial journal on a shelf with more than one hundred printed volumes!

Databases and Digital Collections:

İSAM has a number of important databases and digitized collections which are available to the library’s researchers.

The database of manuscripts in Turkish libraries (Türkiye Kütüphaneleri Veri Tabanı) is probably the library’s most important database. With approximately 709,000 entries for manuscripts and printed works from 122 different libraries in Turkey, the database is an invaluable tool for researchers who work with Islamic and Ottoman manuscripts.

In addition to this database, the library has a number of other databases which have collected bibliographic information on all theses produced in Turkish universities related to Islamic or Ottoman studies—to date this collection has more than 260,000 entries.

The library also has several digital collections which are of interest to Ottomanists. Firstly, the library has an extensive collection of Ottoman court records. The collection includes digitized copies of the Ottoman court records (mahkemenin kadı sicilleri) located in Turkey and other countries. The collection has records from the İstanbul Muftülüğü, the court registers of Milli Kütüphane, as well as the court registers for much of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Crimea,  Damascus, Aleppo and Jerusalem. A full list can be accessed at the Kadı Sicilleri Kataloğu Veri Tabanı.

In addition to these court records, the library also has a modest collection of digitized manuscripts, the Ottoman newspaper Takvim-i Vekayi, and a collection of the Ottoman provincial yearbooks (salnameler). The library has also compiled a useful search engine for Ottoman treatises (risaleler) and articles (makaleler), which provides a PDF copy of the original article. The database is particularly useful for locating early twentieth-century scholarship published in Turkey. On top of this, the library is entrusted with the personal archives and music collections of some twentieth-century Turkish historians.

Research Experience

Working at İSAM is a relatively straightforward process. The library has many tables located across three floors, most of which are equipped with electric outlets in the floor. The library’s collections are mostly stored in open stacks which researchers may browse as they like.

The library has an online catalog of its collections which can be accessed from any of the computer terminals on each floor of the library. Although the catalog is only in Turkish, its relative simplicity renders it accessible to non-Turkish speakers. The search function of the catalog only has three options: title name (eser adı), author (yazar), or publication place/publisher (yayın yeri/yayınlanan). Researchers looking for material published in a non-Latin alphabet should keep in mind that the library’s materials are cataloged according to the conventions of modern Turkish transcription. In this regard, the library suggests that researchers not include Arabic or Persian grammatical features (idafa/ezafe, i‘rab, etc.) in their search terms.

The library’s workspace is comfortable, although some areas are poorly lit and often crowded. The library’s great collections and location near a number of universities have made it a popular destination for study. Most mornings the library is relatively empty, but after lunch many students arrive to do homework and other assignments. Despite the occasional crowds, the library is still a relatively quiet place to get work done.

While the library offers wireless internet, connections from many places in the library are weak and slow. Passwords for the library’s six wireless connections can be obtained from the front desk. Researchers must enter their email and personal password (last name) in order to connect to one of the wireless networks.

The interior of the İSAM library
The interior of the İSAM library

Accessibility

İSAM is open every day between 9:00 and 23:00 except holidays, however the library’s digital collections, documentation files, and photocopy services are only available to researchers between 9:00 and 19:00. The library is wheel-chair accessible, although the tea garden (mentioned below) can only be accessed via a flight of stairs.

The library is open to graduate students and university instructors. Researchers intending to work at İSAM may enter the campus of 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi after receiving a guest pass from the guard at the front gate. Researchers may obtain a membership card for İSAM which will provide them access to the campus and the research center by completing an application at the circulation desk of the library. The application consists of a simple form, proof of a researcher’s affiliation with a university or research center, and the submission of one passport sized photograph. Membership cards are generally ready within one business day.

Reproduction Requests and Costs

The library has a photocopy center that will produce photocopies or scans for 5 kuruş per page (as of 10 October 2013). While researchers may request that most things be copied, there are limits on recently published books, theses, and certain other material. Generally the photocopiers are reluctant to scan more than fifty pages of any item as above this the files become too large to email.

Researchers may also make requests for reproductions of the library’s digital collections. These requests are made through a library patron’s account after signing in to view any of the digital material. Requests for copies from the digital collection generally take a couple of days to process as each request is sent to the center’s director for approval.

Transport and Food

İSAM is easily accessible by a number of forms of public transportation. Several buses that leave from Üsküdar and Kadıköy pass by a main intersection that is 150 meters from İSAM’s entrance. Dolmuşes, which are a little more expensive, but probably faster, also pass along the same main road. Dolmuşes leaving from Kadıköy depart across the street from the main bus stop, while dolmuşes from Üsküdar leave next to Selmanağa Camii. The library may also be reached via a one-kilometer walk from the Altunizade Metrobus stop.

There are many food options in close proximity to İSAM. There is a cafeteria (yemekhane) on 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi campus which is open to researchers at İSAM. Lunch is served to the library’s patrons between 13:00 and 14:00 and costs 5 TL. The lunch is healthy and filling, but may pose problems for vegetarians and others with special dietary requirements. There are also a number of restaurants in close proximity to the research center; Melek Ev Yemekleri serves good food with many vegetarian options for 8 TL/per plate. Next to the library, there is a small cafe which provides glasses of tea free of charge and nescafe for 60 kuruş a cup.

Contact Information

İcadiye Bağlarbaşı Caddesi, No: 40

34662 – Üsküdar

İstanbul

Tel: +90 216 474 08 50 / Fax: +90 216 474 08 74

Email: isam@isam.org.tr

Resources and Links

İSAM Home Page

İSAM Library Site

Written by Christopher Markiewicz

10 October 2013

Cite this: Christopher Markiewicz, “İSAM”, HAZİNE, 10 October 2013, https://hazine.info/2013/10/10/isam/