Aytek Soner Alpan guides us through the world of Ottoman Administrative Yearbooks.

The official yearbooks of the Ottoman Empire were called sâlnâme. Throughout the year, both central and local Ottoman authorities consistently published comprehensive, historical, administrative, economic and other statistical data. The first sâlnâme was issued in 1847 as a part of the Ottoman administrative reform process. Different categories of sâlnâmes existed, such as military sâlnâmes (which documented the names of all soldiers, including those in the lowest ranks), state sâlnâmes (which documented the names of all civil servants), and provincial sâlnâmes (which documented the names of all employees in the provincial administration). In addition to economic data, the provincial sâlnâmes included population statistics. The Cezâyir-i Bahr-i Sefîd Vilâyeti (The Vilâyet of the Islands of the Mediterranean Sea) was one of the provinces that published sâlnâme. This province included Lesvos too. The yearbooks for this vilayet, covering the period from 1870 to 1903, can be found in selected library collections. It should be noted, however, that certain years are missing from these collections. Nikolas Vernikos published the 1301 AH (1883/84) yearbook of the Vilayet of the Islands of the Mediterranean Sea in Greek.

The following is a compilation of Muslim educational institutions in the Molova (Molyvos) district of the Sanjak of Lesvos and its villages. These schools were listed in the bilingual Cezâyir-i Bahr-i Sefîd Vilâyeti Sâlnâmesi of the year 1303 AH (1885/86). The sâlnâme contained the official toponyms used in the Ottoman administrative system. These toponyms were either of Turkish origin or derived from translations or deformed versions of the original Greek toponyms. Occasionally, these place names had no meaning at all, while on other occasions, they were replaced with some Turkish words that were only phonetically similar to the Greek originals.