OTAP News: Number 6 - Archive Projects

From Walter@u.washington.edu Tue Sep 10 12:12:18 2002
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 06:47:55 -0700
From: Walter Andrews
Subject: Newsletter 9/10

Dear members of the OTAP mailing list,

With the help of many of you, we are making great progress in the development of the Ottoman Texts Archive and related projects. Some points of major interest follow:

• We have been working with the Bilkent staff to produce an easy-to-use system for employing Unicode fonts to produce transliterated Ottoman texts. We plan to publish soon on the OTAP website instructions and templates for writing Ottoman transliteration using Unicode with Microsoft WORD in both the English and Turkish versions. We urge people using non-standard fonts (including the fonts previously distributed by us) to consider changing to Unicode. If you want to do so immediately, please contact us for suggestions and instructions. If you are using other word-processors (e.g. WordPerfect) please let us know and we will try to help you convert to Unicode.
• If you are having any problems with our website we would appreciate hearing from you.
• We have now produced a draft of our first completely original OTAP publication, the Divan of Revani, which was originally edited in electronic format by Mehmet Çavusoglu and has since been corrected and regularized by Mehmet Kalpakli and Ali Tanyeri and edited for web publication by Walter G. Andrews, Stacy Waters, and Didem Havlioglu. Look for it on the OTAP website. We hope that other scholars will consider web publication for other critical original Ottoman sources, keeping in mind that no other medium can guarantee equally wide-spread access. We will do everything we can to see that you get full credit with your university and program for this kind of publication.
• The following scholars from Bilkent University have begun producing texts for the archive:
• Hivren Demir and Hakan Atay [Tacizade Cafer Celebi's Hevesname]
• Tuba Isinsu Isen [Figani Divani]
• Abdurrahman Atcil [Fezullah Efendi's Fetvalar]
• Arzu Kalender [Fuzuli's Beng u Bade]

We urge other scholars, advanced graduate students, and researchers to add their texts to the archive. We will be glad to assist in producing properly formatted print versions of any texts we receive. Because the Archive is presently heavily weighted toward literary texts, it is crucial that we begin receiving a broader range of texts from histories, to tales, to archival documents, to philosophical, legal, and religious texts.

• In July, Semih Tezcan and Mehmet Kalpakli met in Bamberg, Germany to discuss the Ottoman Historical Dictionary and the development of OTAP transliteration standards. Although the Historical Dictionary still needs to acquire adequate funding, the good news is that Prof. Tezcan is prepared to begin immediately with preparations for the project.
• We are embarking on a project to establish transliteration standards for OTAP. We will be seeking your advice and suggestions in the course of this very important step. We welcome any thoughts you have on this subject. Good news on the funding front. OTAP has received a grant from the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund to continue the RA-ship funded this year by the Institute of Turkish Studies. This will enable us to continue our rapid progress.

Very best wishes from OTAP,

Walter
Walter G. Andrews

OTEP/OTAP/OHD
Department of Near Eastern Languages
and Civilization
Box 353120
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
OTAP Website: http://depts.washington.edu/otap

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