JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MISCELLANEA OTTOMAN DEMOGRAPHIC HISTORY (14th-17th CENTURIES) SOME CONSIDERATIONS 1 Introductzon The role and the importance of demographic figures in the social sciences are obvious. This fact becomes clearer when we look at the economic and social policies of a central government. For our case, the Ottoman Empire, is an example of such a government where figures have not yet been uncovered. The presence of two opposite views about the demographic structure of the Empire might be taken as a measure of our knowledge in this field. An increase in the second half of the sixteenth century is an accepted fact by some writers, while other writers assume underpopulation '). Despite the fact that there is no single research to prove an underpopulation, the figures presented by defenders of population increase give us a chance to interpret them with a different perspective. Though the concept of underpopulation does not necessarily contradict the concept of population increase, since a population may show an increase and yet be under-populated, it surely is something different from a population explosion! A brief look at some of the works might prove useful at this point. Setting forth from the hypothesis of Fernand Braudel2), M.A. Cook tries to prove a tremendous increase in the population of sixteenth century Anatolia3).Though he himself admits the recorded figures to be "absurdly small" 4), and that "the areas in question were not densely populated in the sixteenth century"'), he seeks proof for his hypothesis with a single case, while he neglects some factors which are of vital importance6). The details of his work do not concern this study, but, suffice it to say, an analysis with a different perspective of the same figures used by Cook may disprove the hypothesis that he puts forward.Barkan's findings, which are the product of a much broader study in the geographical sense, show both increases and decreases, depending on the region 7), although he claims a global increase in global terms. Unfortunately, we do not know the basis of this claim, since he died before being able to complete his "collected work" that he mentions in some of his publications.Another example of the studies searching for a population increase is that of Erder and Faroqhi 8), which in fact detects an increase in the population of the areas it studies, but it is due to an internal migration, as the writers mention. A similar result is reached by Lowry9), though not with the same purpose at the outset, for the Trabzon case.By way of ...

This study explores the international collaboration efforts of archivists and records managers starting with the hypothesis that Internet technologies have had a significant impact on both national and international communication for this previously conservative group. The use and importance of mailing lists for this purpose is studied in detail. A quantitative analysis looks globally at the numbers of lists in these fields and the numbers of subscribers. A qualitative analysis of list content is also described. The study finds that archivists and records managers have now created more than 140 mailing lists related to their profession and have been contributing to these lists actively. It also 'estimates' that about half of the profession follows a list relating to their work and that archivists seem to like lists more than records managers do. The study concludes that mailing lists can be seen as a virtual college binding these groups together to develop the field.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to point out the increasing need to provide information professionals with a sound grounding in the technological aspects of their profession. Design/methodology/approach -The paper sets out by describing the sudden increase in volumes of information that confront our society, and then looks at how the younger generation approaches/uses this mass of information. It then analyses how the traditional functions of information professionals (presentation of material, reliable preservation of information, maintaining authenticity, and conservation) are handled in an electronic environment. Findings -The paper discovers that considerable technical knowledge and experience are required to carry out those same functions in an electronic environment and suggests a redefinition of information sciences as information engineering.Research limitations/implications -The paper recommends increasing the technology content in the training of information professionals such as archivists, records managers and librarians. Originality/value -The paper concludes with a radical assertion that the proper locus for such training is a school of engineering rather than a school of librarianship, information studies and/or archives. New generation of usersThe archival world has been arguing about the paperless office concept for decades. One theory states that there will always be paper and that computers simply produce paper faster than human beings could ever do. This is absolutely correct, of course, but when we look at the real reasons for the increase in paper-based information, a startling truth confronts us. What is being generated so much faster is not mere paper but real information. Computers have given us the capability to create, in just a few years, more information than the whole human race managed to produce during its entire history.What is more, the information we see on paper now was produced, and stored, in an electronic environment before being printed as hard copy. We seem to be in a transitional period. The stock of information is currently doubling every three years.The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at According to 2002 figures, our civilisation creates five exabytes (5,000,000,000 GB) of unique information every 12 months, enough to fill the Library of Congress in the US 37,000 times over, or the equivalent of about 1.2 trillion books; 92 per cent of this information is recorded on magnetic media (Lyman and Varian, 2003).According to a study by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the amount of digital information produced in 2006 reached 161 exabytes, a figure which is expected to reach 988 exabytes by 2010(Gantz et al., 2007. It is glaringly obvious that this figure is going to increase exponentially, and that in the near future little or no unique information is going to be produced by actual pens, pencils and typewriters making marks on paper.Nevertheless, the need to transfer information onto paper is likely to continue for some time t...

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Bilgi çağını yaşayan dünyamızda her yıl Amerikan Kongre Kütüphanesini 37.000 kere dolduracak boyutlarda özgün bilgi üretilmektedir ve bu bilginin %92’si manyetik ortamda kayıtlıdır. Böylesi bir ortamda yetişen yeni nesil için kâğıt üzerinde kayıtlı bilgi “kapsama alanı dışında”dır. Onlar bilgiye bir kısım akıllı bilgisel ajanlar vasıtasıyla ve hemen o anda ulaşma eğilimindedirler. Dolayısıyla, giderek azalan zaman dilimleri içinde ulaşamadıkları bilginin bilinmeye değmez olduğunu düşünmektedirler. Enformasyon çalışanlarından, geleneksel olarak beklenen içerik sunumu, güvenilir bilgi saklama, orijinallik tespiti ve konservasyon gibi temel fonksiyonlar da değişen dünyanın koşullarına paralel olarak elektronik odaklı hale gelmektedir. Ancak, bu fonksiyonları elektronik ortamda yürütebilmek için gereken teknik bilgi alt yapısı, enformasyon bilimlerinin neredeyse bir “enformasyon mühendisliği” haline dönüşmesini gerektirecek boyutlardadır. Bu değişimlerden hareketle yola çıkan bu yazı, enformasyon çalışanlarının eğitimlerinde teknolojinin alması gereken yeri sorgulamakta ve bu eğitimin nerede verilmesi gerektiği üzerinde tekrar düşünmek gerektiği sonucuna varmaktadır.