From EIAH

The Encyclopaedia of Iranian Architectural History

The Encyclopaedia of the Iranian Architectural History (EIAH) is compiled based on a new concept of an encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedias covering different fields of knowledge are the concentrated result of extensive research, thus a standard encyclopaedia is a tool that offers the result of the accumulation of research activities. Thus, a standard encyclopaedia is a tool to provide its readers, including the public and scholars, with a set of previous research compiled under a specific title called entry. In standard encyclopaedias, these findings are handed over to expert scholars to compile articles on them.
The basis of EIAH differs from other standard encyclopaedias as all its readers are considered as potential authors of future articles on each presented entry, who may make their contribution to the very encyclopaedia or to any other media. In other words, EIAH is not a place for presenting articles, but a database to provide its users with the existing knowledge on each entry in the field and guides them to get access to books, articles,and documents archives.
EIAH is also differed from standard encyclopaedia in such a manner that its entries are not fixed; rather they are constantly accumulated according to the search and request of users. That is to say, any related term that appears in the database could be a potential entry by itself. Therefore, EIAH is essentially developed to do precise search on all kinds of documents pertaining to the history of architecture and urbanism in the Iranian world.
The geographical domain of EIAH covers the entire Iranian world, from Syr Darya to the Persian Gulf and the Indus to the Euphrates. Its historical span includes the prehistory history to the end of the reign of the Pahlavi I.
The information system in this database is structured around two general categories: entries and documents. An entry is an item that any information is gathered or produced about it. It is also a means of user's access to that information. Documents include any source of information, either printed or not, such as books, articles, booklets, theses, periodicals, films, official documents, manuscripts, etc. It is noteworthy that EIAH's database is in the course of establishment and the present website is merely a pilot version to portray its future.
EIAH's editorial board invites all concerned organizations, institues, individual scholars, and private or public archivists to contribute to this important regional project.