A Brief Bibliographic Guide to Ottoman Studies
By
William M. Blair
There are a number of bibliographical aids for the student of Ottoman studies, some general in nature, many specialized. Here I would like to list and describe those general ones which I have found most useful over the years.
The most important work is the Türkologischer Anzeiger/Turkology Annual . Appearing originally as a supplement to the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes in 1975, this annual has the most comprehensive listing of books, articles, and reviews in the field of
Turkology. The most recent issue, no. 29, was published in 2014. The first 26 issues are now searchable online at http://kjc-fs2.kjc.uni-heidelberg.de:8000/en/ . However, sample searches suggest that the search function is extremely limited. There are no abstracts to increase the potential keywords; while one can search by author, other keyword searches depend on the very limited number of words found in the title. A keyword search for bahriye will not locate entries in English, German, French, etc.—or even Turkish—which do not contain bahriye but which may contain instead other relevant keywords such as donanma , kapudanı derya
, marine , navy, etc. There is a subject search, but the subjects tend to be so broad as to be almost meaningless.
For example, there is no subject specifically concerning the Ottoman navy. The relevant subject heading is “military and warfare,” which contains 401 entries. This breaks down to an average of just 15 entries per year on military and warfare topics, which seems to be low. Under the heading
“Heer- und Kriegswesen” (Military Affairs) in the printed edition for volumes 3-24, i.e., four fewer issues than the online version, there are 461 entries (including cross references) or an average of 21 per issue. Clearly, while the online version is more convenient to use, it does not replace the paper version in terms of completeness and effectiveness in searching. PUL call number: Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z2835.T84.
The Türkologischer Anzeiger complements the massive bibliography by Hans-Jürgen
Kornrumpf, Osmanische Bibliographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Türkei in Europa
(Leiden/Köln: E. J. Brill, 1973). The impetus for producing this 1,378-page bibliography unmatched in its comprehensiveness was that Index Islamicus , the basic index to articles (more recently also to books) in the field of Middle Eastern/Islamic studies, to a great extent neglected
Ottoman studies and publications in Turkish. PUL call number: Near East Graduate Study Room
(SNE) Z2831.K67.
Index Islamicus , as mentioned above, is the basic bibliographical resource for Middle
Eastern/Islamic studies. The first volume appeared in 1958 and covers publications from the years 1906-1955. Supplements—multi-year compilations, annuals, and quarterly issues—bring the bibliographic record up to the current year. Index Islamicus now does a much better job of covering Ottoman and Republican Turkish topics. There is also an online version available through the Princeton University Library Web site. While better than the Türkologischer
Anzeiger online version in terms of interface, it still has the problems that most online bibliographies have, that is, results depend upon the keywords selected by the user. In a printed bibliography, an editor or editorial board organizes the entries so that related entries may be found together, regardless of language of entry or choice of title words. In online databases the

“organization” is largely determined by the searcher. Index Islamicus does have a much better subject searching capability, which greatly enhances it value, but does not include abstracts of the books and articles listed. PUL call numbers: (NEC) Z3013.xL7; (NEC) Z3013.xL71; Near
East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z3013.xL71; Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE)
Z3013.xL72; Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z3013.Q34. Online version available through library Web site.
W. H. Behn has prepared two supplements to Index Islamicus : Index Islamicus, 1665–1905: A
Bibliography of Articles on Islamic Subjects in Periodicals and Other Collective Publications
(Millersville, PA: Adıyok, 1989) and
Index Islamicus, Supplement, 1665 – 1980: A Bibliography of Articles on Islamic Subjects in Periodicals and Other Collective Publications (Millersville,
PA: Adıyok, 1995–1996). As far as I know, the entries in these titles are not included in the online version of Index Islamicus . PUL call numbers: (Recap) Z7835.M6 B43 1989 and Near
East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z3013.L69; (Recap) Z7835.M6 B435 1995 and Near East
Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z7835.M6 B435 1995.
A new periodical publication that promises to be of major interest to Ottomanists is Türkiye
Araştırmaları Literatür Dergisi
(2003–). Each issue is subject-based and contains state-of-thefield articles with bibliography and/or substantial notes filled with citations. Seventeen issues have appeared covering the following subjects:
Türk İktisat Tarihi; Türk Siyaset Tarihi -
Tanzimat'a Kadar; Türk Siyaset Tarihi - Tanzimat'tan Günümüze; Türk Bilim Tarihi; Türk
Hukuk Tarihi; Türk Şehir Tarihi; Yeni Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi I; Yeni Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi II;
Eski Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi I; Eski Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi II; Türk Sosyoloji Tarihi; Türk Eğitim
Tarihi; Türk Mimarlık Tarihi; Türk Sanat Tarihi; Dünyada Türk Tarihçiliği; İstanbul Tarihi; and
Türk Felsefe Tarihi. The articles may cover broad aspects of a subject or be highly focused on a narrow topic in the field. Articles range from a few pages to 100+ depending on the topic. PUL call number: (NEC) DR401.T875.
Another useful bibliography for Ottoman history is
Türkiye Tarih Yayınları Bibliyografyası
. Four volumes have been published: volume 1, 2 nd
edition, covers material published in the years
1729–1955, volume 2 the years 1956–1967, volume 3 the years 1968–1977, and volume 4 the years 1978–1984. While
Türkiye Tarih Yayınları Bibliyografyası
does not compare to the
Kornrumpf bibliography and Türkologischer Anzeiger in terms of quality and coverage, being limited to publications in Turkey, it does give the table of contents of both academic and, more importantly, of some popular history journals, the articles of which tend not to be included in the aforementioned bibliographies and indexes. Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z2846.K62
The basic bibliographical works for history in general are Historical Abstracts and America:
History and Life , both published until recently by ABC-CLIO and now by EBSCO. Due to the general nature of these indexes, they cover a much broader range of works than does
Türkologischer Anzeiger and Index Islamicus and thus identify works that appear outside of the ones indexed by the more specialized journals. For example a keyword search for “Ottoman” and
“navy” in online databases pulls up 119 records in Historical Abstracts , 45 records in Index
Islamicus , and 4 records in Türkologischer Anzeiger . Historical Abstracts provides an abstract for each article and review it indexes (books seem to get just subject headings), which increases the number of possible keyword hits. The subject headings are also superior to those provided by

the specialized journals as they are Library of Congress subject headings, i.e., the same that are used in the Princeton University Library catalog and most WorldCat records.
While not specifically relevant for Ottoman history, a number of catalogs and bibliographies are important for Ottoman studies in general. First is Eski
Harflerle Basılmış Türkçe Eserler
Kataloğu
, 5 volumes, by M. Seyfettin Özege (
Nuruosmaniye, İstanbul: Fatih Yayınevi Matbaası,
1971–1979). This is a comprehensive listing of approximately 25,500 Ottoman Turkish books published between 1729 and 1928 (the catalog does include some post-1928 publications from outside the Turkish Republic, reprints of earlier publications, and other exceptions). The catalog is organized alphabetically by title. Under each title are listed all known editions/printings.
Volume 5 includes a supplement containing additional works identified during the publication process. This catalog has become the standard reference source for Ottoman books, and all
Princeton University Library catalog records for Ottoman books have included the relevant
Özege catalog number since 1991, a practice that a number of other libraries also follow (the keyword searchable note, “Turkish in Arabic script,” is also added to each PUL catalog record, although older records may not include this note). There are problems with the catalog. First, no such catalog can be complete. Despite Özege’s efforts to identify all Ottoman books, some escaped his efforts. Second and much more important, the lack of indexes is a problem if one is looking for works by a specific author, a publisher, a place of publication, etc. Third, there are numerous mistakes in the alphabetization of the works. Fourth, the transliteration of Ottoman
Turkish is inconsistent and often differs from a transliteration based on modern Turkish, which seems to be the basis for the transliteration. Finally, the format of the entries does not follow an optimum style. PUL call number: Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z2831.O34.
A similar work to the Özege catalog is Türkiye basmaları toplu kataloğu: Arap harfli Türkçe eserler, 1729 – 1928 = The union catalogue of Turkey’s printed books: Turkish publications in
Arabic letters , 6 volumes in 7 parts
[hazırlayanlar, Müjgan Cunbur, Dursun Kaya] (Ankara: Milli
Kütüphane Basımevi, 1990–2004). This work has some benefits not found in the Özege catalog.
Each Ottoman title is followed by a list of Turkish libraries in which the book may be found.
The catalog is organized alphabetically by author, thus complementing the Özege catalog. One problem with the catalog is that publication appears to have ceased after six volumes, so only authors whose names begin with the letters A through J are covered. A second problem is the lack of any consistency in the cataloging records supplied by the contributing libraries. The same book may be listed in several places because of differences in how the book is described or it may be found in more than one place because of a lack of authority control, i.e., the author’s name has been established in different forms by different libraries (in the US, the Library of
Congress maintains a Name Authority File in order to avoid this problem, so in theory, all books by the same author, no matter how the author’s name appears in a book, will be found under one approved form of the name). Princeton University call number: (NEC) Z2831.T8.
The National Library of Turkey has issued a CD-ROM version of its union catalog, Eski Harfli
Türkçe Basma Eserler B ibliografyası 1584–1986 = The Bibliography of Turkish Works Printed in Non-Latin (Arabic, Armenian and Greek characters) 1584–1986 (Ankara: Mil lı̂ Kütüphane,
2001. 1 CD-ROM; 4 3/4 in). This catalog has many of the problems of its printed, incomplete version in terms of the inconsistency of records submitted by contributing libraries. Another problem is that the CD-ROM was prepared before unicode standards were established for fonts.

Unless one’s computer contains the font used by the database, letters with diacritics are transformed into other symbols in the results. This also poses a problem in searching for these letters, although one can copy the symbols from results and paste them in the search fields to represent the letters. Princeton University Library call number: Firestone Microforms Services
(FilmB) COMPUTER FILE 606
Turkish books were not only published in the Arabic alphabet. Two works cover Turkish books published in the Greek alphabet and in the Armenian alphabet, respectively. Karamanlica (or
Karamanlidika) books, i.e., books in the Turkish language published in the Greek alphabet, are described by Sévérien Salaville and Eugène Dalleggio in Karamanlidika: bibliographie analytique d’ouvrages en langue turque imprimés en caractères grecs , volumes 1–3 (1584–
1850; 1851–1865; and 1866–1900) and by Evangelia Balta, volumes 4–5 (Additions, 1584–
1900; and XXe siècle) (Athènes, 1958-1987). Princeton University Library has started to include the Karamanlidika number in each record of these books as well as the following keyword searchable note: “Turkish in Greek script.” Princeton University Library call number: (NEC)
Z2841.S3.
There is a similar catalog for Turkish books published in Armenian script prepared by Hasmik A.
Stepʻanyan. First published in 1985 with the title, Hayataṛ tʻurkʻeren grkʻeri matenagitutʻyun,
1727-1968 , the bibliography has since been reprinted with parallel Turkish and French translations:
Hayataṛ tʻurkʻeren grkʻeri ew hayataṛ tʻurkʻeren parberakan mamuli matenagitutʻiwn, 1727–1968 / Hasmik A. Stepʻanean =
Ermeni harfli Türkçe kitaplar ve süreli yayınlar bibliyografyası, 1727–1968
= Bibliographie des livres et de la presse Armeno-Turque,
1727-1968 (
Galatasaray, İstanbul: Turkuaz Yayınları, 2005). In the Princeton University Library catalog, Turkish books in the Armenian script are now being given a keyword searchable note to this effect. Unfortunately, several versions of this note exist: “Turkish in Armenian script”;
“Ottoman Turkish in Armenian script”; and “Turkish in Armenian characters.” Princeton
University Library call number: Annex A, Forrestal (TEMP) Z7096.S746 1985a; Near East
Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z7096.S746 2005.
Since the mid-1980s, three union catalogs of Ottoman periodicals have appeared, two by Hasan
Duman and one by the National Library of Turkey. Duman’s first work,
İstanbul kütüphaneleri
Arap harfli süreli yayınlar toplu kataloğu, 1828–1928
= Union catalogue of the periodicals in
Arabic script in the libraries of Istanbul, 1828–1928, with an introduction by Ekmeleddin
İhsanoğlu (Beşiktaş, İstanbul: İslâm Tarih, Sanat, ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi, İslâm
Konferansı Teşkilâtı) appeared in 1986. Listing 1804 titles found in one or more of ten Istanbul libraries, this work provides detailed bibliographical information about each journal and lists those libraries which have the journal, together with the actual holdings. There are also a number of useful indexes in both Arabic and Turkish. Princeton University Library call number: Near
East Graduate Study Room (SNE) Z6958.T8 D86 1986.
The appearance of this first union catalog was followed shortly by the
Millı̂ Kütüphane union catalog,
Eski harfli Türkçe süreli yayınlar toplu kataloğu (Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı,
Millı̂ Kütüphane Başkanlığı Yayınları, 1987), which includes records from libraries throughout
Turkey and lists 2325 titles. The catalog has a number of serious drawbacks, however, including no indexes. For a comparison of these two catalogs, see William Blair, “Three Catalogues of

Ottoman and Early Turkish Republic Journals and Newspapers,” The Turkish Studies
Association Bulletin 15, no. 2 (September 1991), pp. 371–78. Princeton University Library call number: (NEC) Z6958.T8 E84.
A second, greatly expanded version of the Duman catalog,
Başlangıcından harf devrimine kadar
Osmanlı-Türk süreli yayınlar ve gazeteler bibliyografyası ve toplu kataloğu, 1828–1928
[İngilizce çeviriler Christopher Bailey; Arapça çeviriler Cengiz Ketene, Musa Yıldız] =
A bibliography and union catalogue of Ottoman-Turkish serials and newspapers from beginning to the introduction of the modern Turkish alphabet, 1828–1928 [English texts by Christopher
Bailey; Arabic texts by Cengiz Ketene, Musa Yildiz] =
Bībliyūghrāfiyā wa-al-fihris almuwaḥḥad lil-ṣiḥāfah al-ʻUthmānīyah - al-Turkīyah (al-dawrīyāt wa-al-ṣuḥuf) min al-bidāyah ilá thawrat taghyīr al-aḥruf, 1828–1928
(Ankara: Enformasyon ve Dokümantasyon Hizmetleri
Vakfı), appeared in 2000 in three volumes, two consisting of the catalog and one with samples of journals in facsimile. This second edition of the catalog contains 2526 records from twenty-six contributing libraries—twelve from Istanbul, four from Ankara, and ten from libraries located outside of these two cities. Explanatory material is in Arabic, English, and Turkish, and, like its predecessor, the work includes many useful indexes. Princeton University Library call number:
Near East Graduate Study Room (SNE). Z6958.T8 D85 2000.
A subcategory of Ottoman periodical literature is that of yearbooks. While the first Ottoman yearbook was only published in 1847, yearbooks, especially the provincial ones, often contain information on the number of different types of buildings such as mosques, lists of towns and villages within each province, and provincial maps, information which can be used to check information obtained elsewhere. The first union catalog of Ottoman yearbooks,
Osmanlı
Yıllıkları (Salnameler ve Nevsaller): Bibliyografya ve Bazı İstanbul Kütüphanelerine Göre bir
Katalog Denemesi=Ottoman Year-Books (Salname and Nevsal): A Bibliograph [sic] and a
Union Catalog with Reference to Istanbul Libraries
(İstanbul: İslâm Tarih, Sanat ve Kültürü
Araştırma Merkezi [IRCICA], 1982), was also edited by Hasan Duman. It lists 716 yearbooks, of which 498 are provincial yearbooks. There are a small number of provincial yearbooks not listed in this catalog. For example, the eighth Halep yearbook and the ninth Konya yearbook are lacking, but overall this catalog is an impressive record of Ottoman yearbooks. Princeton
University call number: (NEC) Z2845.A5 D85.
A second, expanded edition of Duman’s union catalog,
Osmanlı sâlnâmeleri ve nevsâlleri bibliyografyası ve toplu kataloğu [İngilizce çeviriler, Christopher Bailey; Arapça çeviriler, Musa
Yıldız] =
A bibliography and union catalogue of Ottoman year-books [English texts by
Christopher Bailey; Arabic texts by Musa Yildiz] = al-
Bībliyūghrāfiyā wa-al-fihris al-muwaḥḥad lilsālnāmāt wa-al-nawsālāt al-ʻUthmānīyah
(Ankara: Enformasyon ve Dokümantasyon
Hizmetleri Vakfı), appeared in 2000 in two volumes, one containing the catalog and one with samples of yearbooks in facsimile. Expanding his base from twelve to sixteen libraries, including three in Ankara and one in Erzurum, Duman has added fourteen additional yearbooks to the catalog for a total of 730 records. This catalog is still not a complete listing as it does not include the eighth Halep or the ninth Konya yearbooks that were left out of the first edition and evidently not held by any of the libraries consulted by Duman. Still, this catalog is a major contribution to
Ottoman studies. Princeton University Library call number: Near East Graduate Study Room
(SNE) Z2843.A5 D85 2000.