The beginning of ITU Publishing House dates back to the Mühendishane Printing House (1797), which was founded under the chairmanship of Mühendishane teacher Abdurrahman Efendi, with the printing sets inherited from İbrahim Müteferrika, who published the first Turkish book in the Ottoman Empire. The first book in Mühendishane Printing House was the historical Mehâh-i Miyâh (Water Treatise, 1797), which was printed in the year of its establishment and edited by Âşirefendizade Derviş Mehmed Hafid.

Until 1824, 66 works were printed, including the important publications of the period such as Başhoca Hüseyin Rıfkı Tamani’s Usûl-i Hendese (1797-98), Atlas-ı Kebîr Tercümesi (1803, author: William Faden) translated into Turkish by Resmî Mustafa Ağa, and Mahmut Raif Efendi’s Cedveli-Tableau des nouveaux reglemens de I’Empire Ottoman (1798) printed in French in the Ottoman Empire.

The printing house, which was inactive for almost 45 years between 1826 and 1870, started operating again especially in 1878 and 38 works were printed here until 1906.

The Istanbul Technical University Publication Catalog between 1929 and 1955 was prepared by A. Kemal Yamantürk and it is stated that 409 books were printed here. It is seen that 3009 books were published by ITU Publishing House after 1955.

As understood from the brief history of the Publishing House given above, except for a 45-year period in the 19th century, publishing activities at ITU have been carried out continuously since its establishment. In other words, technical publishing is a very important tradition of ITU.

You can access the first works printed at the Mühendishane Printing House, the ITU Rare Works Catalogue and ITU publications printed after 1930 from the following links:

1. https://istanbultarihi.ist/288-istanbuldaki-ilk-turk-matbaalarinda-basilan-kitaplar
2. https://kutuphane.itu.edu.tr/arastirma/nadir-eserler
3. https://kutuphane.itu.edu.tr/arastirma/itu-yayınlari

¹Beydilli, K. (1995). Türk Bilim ve Matbaacılık Tarihinde Mühendishane - Mühendishane Matbaası ve Kütüphanesi (1776-1826). Eren Yayıncılık, Beyoğlu, İstanbul.
²Beydilli, K. (2015). Antik Çağ’dan XXI. Yüzyıla Büyük İstanbul Tarihi - Cilt 7. İstanbul’daki İlk Türk Matbaalarında Basılan Kitaplar. Ed. Coşkun Y. Aydın, M.A, İBB Kültür A.Ş. Yayınları, Topkapı, İstanbul.

Usul-i Hendese
Mühendishane-i Berr-i Hümayun Printing House [1212(1797-1798)]

It is the Öklides Hendesesi, that Hüseyin Rıfkı Efendi, the second caliph of the Mühendishane translated from Bonnycastle together with the British engineer Selim.

Tableau des Nouveaux Reglements de l’Empire Ottoman
Mühendishane-i Berr-i Hümayun Printing House [1213(1798)]

Mahmud Raif Efendi's work containing summaries of the laws issued regarding the Nizam-ı Cedid applications.