Encyclopaedia Iranica Progress Report

Dear Friends and Supporters of the Encyclopaedia Iranica,

Thanks to your invaluable moral and financial support, we had a most successful 2007 in carrying out our project as planned. We owe our proven success in fulfilling our mission first and foremost to you and your active involvement and generous support.

As in the past, I would like to share with you not only our long-term vision for preserving our shared cultural heritage, but also a brief outline of our plans for the forthcoming months:

1- With the publication of Fascicles 1, 2 and 3 of Volume XIV of the Encyclopaedia Iranica during 2007, the articles under the letter “I” were completed.

2- Fascicle 4 of Volume XIV of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, covering the first series of articles under the letter “J,” was published in January. The fascicle ends with the first part of the entry on Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, the pioneer of modern Persian fiction.

3- As mentioned in my previous letters, the development of our website is of crucial importance for a host of reasons. While exploiting the full possibilities of the internet and keeping abreast of ongoing developments, we have endeavored to make sure that our standards of accuracy and reliability are maintained.

4- To date, some 550 articles have been published online without following the alphabetical order.

5- One of our most urgent tasks is to increase our editorial staff so that we can cope with the increasing number of entries we receive for electronic publication.

6- I should like to encourage all of you to visit our website at www.iranica.com to see the enormous progress that has been made thus far.

7- I shall let you know about INTERNATIONAL IRANICA WEEK (the first week of May of each year) in my next letter to you.

With my sincere greetings and best wishes for the forthcoming Nowruz,

Sincerely yours,

Ehsan Yarshater,
Editor