The Ten-Percent Rule

Dear Friends, Family, and Interested Observers,

Good news to report on the document front.
I think I have finally secured permission to copy the rest of the court records. I have had to wait a month and a half for this.

Things got rolling earlier this week when I received an email from Benjamin Ball, the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy. He said that the issue had bounced back and forth the Embassy and the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Indeed, non-Turkish researchers may copy no more than 10% of a court record defter at the National Library. However, there is one important loophole. If the researcher can prove a legitimate need, the library president can approve more copying.

From all appearances, my little crisis was resolved by some Turkish official in the Foreign Ministry in an impromptu fashion. I don’t think anyone knows what the actual rule is supposed to be. I’m not complaining. Up until last week, the higher ups of the library staff were adamant about the 10% rule.

The day after I learned about the exception, I asked Ali Fuat Bey to make an introductory phone call to N.L. President Celal Tok. We shook hands and chatted the same afternoon. Permission granted.

That’s not the end of the story, of course. I went down to Microfilm Department immediately after meeting Celal Bey to break the good news. However, my good news was not greeted with enthusiasm. First, I had to wait there for an hour, because the administrator of the department was not there (as usual). In the meantime, the microfilm copy machine operators stated curtly that they needed a formal permission note. Second, when the administrator finally trundled in, he also continued to insist that the 10% rule was still in effect during a soliloquy in which I could not manage to get out a complete sentence. When I finally spoke, I mentioned that I had met with Celal Bey had given me permission. The administrator changed his tune quicker than all get out. He began figuring out a timetable for me to get my documents. I should get the first installment tomorrow.

After this exchange, one of the copy machine operators walked in. He could not hide is disdain at the prospect of copying 50 complete defters for me. I could not help but relish his painful expression. In my time in the Microfilm Department, I have watched those machine operators coerce many a vulnerable graduate student into doing their work for them on that broken down, old copier. All around, everyone in that department was a little too overzealous about me not getting the documents I needed.

So, for those of you who have research ahead of you in Turkey, let it be a cautionary tale on working at the National Library. It is a very bureaucratic place and the rules of engagement are complex, opaque, and ever changing. However, if you need to get the court records for anywhere in Anatolia outside of Bursa and some locales closer to Istanbul, you will still have to work here. I hear that the original defters have been sent to the Prime Ministry Archives, but I could not envision myself thumbing through dozens of pages of these documents at a sitting and taking notes. Also, if you encounter a permission problem as I have, don’t hesitate to contact the U.S. Embassy and its cultural affairs department. They saved me in this case, and I’m not sure that the diplomatic note was entirely unnecessary.

The good thing about all this delay is that it has forced me to do other necessary things. Last weekend, for instance, I went to Tokat to see Zekeriya Başkal and his family and meet with the History Department of Gaziosmanpaşa University. There is a talented group of researchers in Tokat (Mehmet Beşirli, Ali Açıkel, Ali İbrahim Savaş, Mehmet Mercan). Although none of them specialize in my period, they were very generous in giving advice about my project. They also let me scan some of the court records that they had, but half of their copies were almost illegible, so I’m glad my permission in Ankara came through.

I stayed in Tokat over the weekend from Friday to Monday. It was cold, snowy, and wet most of the time, so I didn’t get a chance to do a lot of sight seeing. I hope to make a longer trip in the spring.

My friend Zekeriya, an assistant professor in the Literature Department of Gaziosmanpasa University, seems to have settled in well. Zekeriya and I share a long history; we took many of same classes at UW, worked on joint projects, and served as teaching assistants and graders for the same undergraduate courses (before he finished his degree). I don’t envy Zekeriya’s work load; he has thirty hours of lectures in a week in addition to his office work and research.

It was readily apparent to me from his interactions with other faculty while I was in Tokat that his talent and hard work have earned him the respect of his colleagues. I look forward to his completion of a book on nineteenth-century Ottoman Armenian novelists. Zekeriya has also been a rainmaker for the university, bringing in a lot of research euros from the E.U. Gaziosmanpaşa is a relatively new foundation and it needs the outside resources.

Zekeriya also has a very comfortable flat in the city which he shares with his wife Ayşe, a high school teacher, and his darling and precocious daughter, Meryem. Meryem reminds me a lot of my niece Emma. Zekeriya and his family were wonderful hosts.

As I will be returning to the States next Wednesday for the holidays, I will not make my next blog entry until I return in early January. Happy holidays!

Görüşmek Üzere,

jkbinturkey