A major award from the U.S. Department of Education enabled the library to acquire complete or nearly complete sets of 310 Turkish and Azerbaijani periodicals. The University of Texas library is the only repository in the United States for many of those journals. The collection is considered a unique national resource in the field of Turkish studies. The development of the Turkish library holdings is coordinated by Abazar Sepehri, Head of the Middle East Library Program. Mr. Sepehri makes regular acquisition trips to Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Every year there are a number of Turkish cultural and scholarly events on campus.
The exhibit featured rare archival photographs collected by the distinguished photographer Ergun Cagatay. Mr. Cagatay gave a public talk on the exhibit, and participated in a panel discussion that included resident and outside experts. The exhibit was followed by an international conference on the city of Istanbul organized by the Center. It brought together scholars from Turkey and the U.S. for two days of lively presentations and discussions. The following year the Center sponsored performances of traditional Turkish music.