Arşivlerde danışma hizmetleri ve Osmanlı Arşivi'nde durum

When we consider the past, present and future of a nation, we can say that a nation can exist only with its archives. The crucial importance of archives in the administrative, social, cultural and political dimensions of a nation has been accepted by all nations. The importance of archives lies in the value of documents they contain. Archive documents could have some value only when they are presented to the use of science and society. Archive documents can be presented to the scientific community and society through reference services. The use of microforms and computers is absolutely, necessary for a modern reference service. The recent information technologies in reference services provide speed, efficiency, effectiveness and economy in these services. With the archives inherited from the Ottoman Empire, our country has some of the richest archives of the world. The documents in our archives are invaluable for solutions to the political, economical and cultural problems of not only Turkey, but also of European, North African and- Middle Eastern Countries. Therefore, the number of Turkish and foreign researchers who want to do research on our archives is increasing rapidly. In order to present the documents of the Ottoman Empire to the use of public, we need to develop the reference services. Unfortunately the reference services in Ottoman Archives are neither sufficient nor efficient. We have to use all the facilities of recent information technologies for the development of reference services, because it is impossible to present the archive documents to the use of public without these services