Middle East Electronic Project

With the publication of Istanbul Boy, Part I, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the University of Texas Press, in consultation with the University of Texas General Libraries, inaugurate a new project to publish scholarly monographs on the Internet. Based at the website maintained by the Center, this effort will be an online extension of the highly regarded Modern Middle East Series. Through this series, the Center and the Press have jointly published nearly twenty works on Middle Eastern history and cultures.

Istanbul Boy, Part I, was chosen as our first Internet offering for several reasons. Although our aim is to publish new works of scholarship, it seemed wise during this initial phase to work with a text that is in the spirit of the project but lacks the complexities of a monograph. The first three installments of Istanbul Boy have been out of print for several years. The continued demand for these books, especially the first, made this memoir a natural choice for online publication. Shortly before his death, author Aziz Nesin expressed his interest in our program, graciously offering his permission to use his work in the pilot phase of the program. We have reproduced the original text of the book using a scanner and optical character recognition software, keeping to the basic format of the print edition while taking advantage of the electronic medium.

During the next phase of this project we will offer entirely new works that will be available only over the Internet. Like the printed editions in the Modern Middle East Series, these will be scholarly works presenting original research or analyses of Middle Eastern cultures, aimed primarily at an academic audience. In keeping with the Association of American University Presses policy, our electronic works will be subject to the rigorous standards developed for academic publications. Although we will continue to present the text in browseable HTML, we will also be exploring the possibility of offering files that can be downloaded in an accessible format, allowing the traditional elements of layout and design to be incorporated more completely into this medium.

The members of the Association of American University Presses aver that the established principles of selection, peer-review, and editorial refinement will be applied to university press publications via electronic media no less than to conventional print products. These are among the first steps that distinguish publication from the service activity of transmission. Adherence to these procedures is a condition of Association membership. Academic authorities looking to the scholarly production of faculty members for guidance may rely on the university press imprimatur in respect to their electronic publications.

cmes@menic.utexas.edu

Last updated: 9/25/96
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