A World-Level Digital Library

Chief Librarian Yoo JP of National Assembly Library in the process of building global network and is proud of daily Fact Book

Chief Librarian Yoo Jong-pil of the National Assembly Library of Korea in an exclusive recent interview with NewsWorld, said the library plays a big role as it represents all libraries in Korea and a huge depository of information that are needed by lawmakers in their activities, mostly legislation of laws and regulations in large part through its digital library loaded with all kinds of information on books and papers, in addition to the indices of regular publications in Korea. The National Assembly Library also acts as a consignment depository for 10 international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, among others, as the NAL has a world-level digital library facility and provides information to such world-renowned libraries as the Library of U.S. Congress, the National Library of Germany, and libraries at Stanford and Yale Universities in the U.S. NAL is in consultations with the National Library of France and the Royal Library of Great Britain on the exchange of information.





















The chief librarian said he will try to make the NAL an open library to the public by lowering thresholds all the time, listening to the grievances filed with the NAL to resolve them as soon as possible so that the public will have an easy access to all the information and data that the NAL has in store. Following are a gist of what Chief Librarian Yoo said during the interview:
Question: Can you tell us the number of books and other printed materials stored at the National Assembly Library (NAL) and what the NAL is up to now?
A: The NAL opened in February, 1952, during the Korean War in Busan to support legislators activities including legislation of laws with information with 3,600 books. The NAL currently has 2.87 million books of general interest, 820,000 electronic file books and non-book material of 310,000 items?4 million books in storages in all. The library in addition has in store 22,400 regular publications and 964 kinds of newspaper material.
The most important part is the digitalized library which has access to 2 million cases with more than 110 million pages of information in their original forms. It is the largest such library in the country in terms of scale.
Q: What has been the NAL’s functions so far?
A: First, the NAL has been collecting information needed for lawmakers legislative activities and sort them out and provide them to the legislators. Second, the NAL as the library for the people acts as a depository of all papers for academic degrees and sort out the indexes of all regular publications in the country to show them to the people.
Third, as the function of the national electronics library, the NAL has been sending the digital library to over 1,000 organizations around the world to make the library accessible from any where in the world for the sake of sharing jointly the national knowledge information with others, playing a big role in resolving information imbalance by regions.
Fourth, As part of the NAL’s international cooperation with libraries in major countries abroad, including those in the U.S. Library of Congress and the National Diet Library of Japan and others to build a global knowledge information network to show the world Korea’s high-level IT and excellent information system, playing its role as a representative library in Korea.
Q: What about the current situation at the electronics library?
A: The electronics library is the strongest part of the NAL as it has 110 million pages of original data base in the digital library, which has been linked with some 1,000 libraries at home and abroad and research institutions so that the materials at the NAL can be accessible on real time from any where in the world.
The digital library also has a digitalized depository of 1.3 million papers for advanced degrees collected from decades ago and the indices of 8,700 regular publications in the country totaling 2.7 million cases.
Q: What has been the significance of opening the NAL to the public and expected results?
A: The NAL is for providing the services to legislators to help their legislative activities, but has been expanding its services to the public continuously as the National Assembly exists in the minds of the people, also. However, there has been some difficulties in the way of the public to access knowledge information from the NAL, although a lot of efforts were made to make them fully accessible to them.
From June, this year, the NAL extended its closing time to 10 p.m. every evening so that more people can use it from any where in the country. As of now some 400 more students and office workers on daily average have been using the library. The NAL has been improving its services to the handicapped, especially deaf and blind by installing voice service for the blind and sign language service for the deaf. The public service is one of the most important responsibilities for the NAL. I listen to public grievances collected by the NAL all the time to continuously eliminate the difficulties in the way of public access to the NAL.
Q: Can you tell us about the translation of the books on Dokdo and the establishment of the NAL’s branch at the Dokdo military guard compound?
A: The NAL has in store about 9,000 items of books and other publications related to Dokdo and has been working on analyzing the subject words on Dokdo at libraries around the world, correct mistakes, search for Dokdo related materials in those libraries and collect them, along with other diversified Dokdo related works.
The English-translated version of the book on Dokdo Island, the sovereignty of which South Korea and Japan are at odds, was sent to many libraries around the world by the NAL, Yoo said. The book’s title is “Dokdo-Takeshima Controversy.” The book was co-authored by Seichu Naito, an honorary professor at Shimane University in Japan, and Park Byung-up, a scholar on the island who is a Korean resident in Japan, whose collaboration focused on objective. The island consists of 89 tiny islets formed from volcanic activities. For decades, Seoul and Tokyo have been involved in a territorial dispute over which country owns the island, located in the easternmost part of Korea in the East Sea. Japan claims it’s the Sea of Japan.
The book features historic references such as a memorandum written in 1696 about the arrival of a Korean boat to the seashore, a confidential document sent by the US. Embassy in Tokyo, and a chronology of the islets. The book is intended to help reduce the meaningless friction between the two neighboring countries by shedding light on Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, generally not known very well to ordinary citizens in the two countries, Park said in the prelude of the book. He also said that together with his Japanese partner, he focused on the territorial dispute from a factual perspective rather than fictional perspective, rather than directly taking sides on the sovereignty of the island.
On Nov. 20, we set up a special branch of the NAL on Dokdo as it is our island, linking the island with the National Assembly, our representative organ. On Dokdo, residents can now have access to various information and data on real time at the NAL branch on the island including such vital information as history, laws, legislative and academic information, which tell the world Dokdo Island firmly belongs to us inside the Korean sovereign territory, a very significant way, the Chief Librarian said.
Q: What are mid-to-long term visions for the NAL?
A: Not long after my arrival at the NAL, I decided to set up a future vision for the NAL together with staff and selected, “Library 4 U, the National Assembly Library” which shows that the information will be collected universally and process them usefully and ubiquitously utilized, your library.
In order to realize such vision, the NAL will provide limitless services to legislators by building a top-level legal library, collecting comprehensively national knowledge and information and scientifically store them by building a global knowledge information network, and providing them to overseas Koreans, in fact, to make the NAL an open library accessible to all people from any where.
Chief Librarian Yoo visited a number of major libraries around the world during the initial year of his appointment at the NAL. The list includes the Library of U.S. Congress with 140 million deposit items, the National Library of Russia, which boasts 40 million deposit items, the Library of Great Britain, the Mitteran National Library, the Berlin Library of Germany, the National Library of China, the National Library of Japan, the New York Public Library, the St. Petersburg Russian People’s Library and the Alexandria Library in Egypt set up in B.C. 3rd century.
NAL is third behind the Library of U.S. Congress and the Diet Library of Japan among legislative libraries in the world, the chief librarian said. NAL’s strongest point is its electronically equipped part. Yoo said all the 11 libraries he toured in Russia greeted him and his entourage with great welcome with the purpose of his tour being to learn what he could do to develop the NAL further. He said he had to endure many difficulties as his aids tried to record all the conversations he had with library officials he met; he wanted to look about as many library facilities as possible during the tour. On one occasion, he was in such a hurry he failed to get the boarding pass before getting on the plane and his entourage thought he had missed the plane.
Touring some 40 libraries around the world gave him a tremendous inspiration and helped him to set the directions for running the NAL, together with reforms that need to be done at the library. He came to realize the greatness of mankind’s spiritual world.
The chief librarian said the great difference between the NAL and its equivalents overseas is that no presidents ever visited it including all of its functions, although there is no ban on them.
On the contrary, a number of past U.S. presidents visited the congressional library including presidents Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln and Madison to name just a few. President Reagan attended the tape-cutting ceremonies held at the library often, while President Obama often appeared on the covers of the libraries magazines when he was a senator because he visited the library so often.
In Russia, many heads of state attended the functions of St. Petersburg Library starting from Peter the Great in the Czarist Russia, Lenin, Presidents Putin and Medvedev. In France, there are four national libraries each 20-story tall, which were initiated by President Mitteran. Reportedly, the late President was so enthused about the construction of libraries that he visited the construction sites of those libraries on 49 different occasions. In 1995, he attended a tape-cutting ceremony for one of those libraries, which are nicknamed as Mitteran libraries.
In China, there is a national library with Deng Xiaoping’s calligraphy. In the Beijing National Library are calligraphies of both Deng and Jiang Zemin.
Yoo said he is sorry about the situation in Korea and it is about the time that the heads of state should pay more attention to national libraries. Historically, many successful heads of state paid a great attention on libraries. In Jeoson Dynasty, kings Sejong and Jongjo paid a lot of their attention on national libraries. King Sejong normalized the Jiphyun-jon, a palatial library inside the Royal Court and the Kyujang-kak, a royal library in the Royal Court was set up during the reign of King Jong-jo, which still exists today right in the center of the Gumwon, or the Forbidden Garden in Seoul.
The commonalty that stands out among major libraries in the world is their location, Yoo said. For example, the Library of U.S. Congress is located in the center of Washington D.C, while the Russian National Library is situated just across from the Kremlin, in Moscow. The powerful people kept the treasury of knowledge by their sides. Egypt’s Alexandria Library helped a number of historic scholars including Socrates. Roman Governor Antonius presented 200,000 books to Queen Cleopatra. These show the importance of libraries to the rulers throughout the history, the chief librarian said.
Personally, Yoo said the tutoring expenses would be reduced if more libraries are built in Korea. He said he would like to stress the importance of library in society. Bill Gates often studied books at a neighborhood library when he was growing up in Seattle, Washington, the United States, he recalled.
Yoo said the most important element for libraries are their locations. He said heard that the location of libraries are selected first when building a city in the United States.
As locations of libraries in primary schools were changed, the number of students using them doubled in the United States, Yoo said.
The most ideal way to expand the number of libraries in cities is to build many small libraries here and there in small cities and link them with libraries in large cities to set up networking among them, the chief librarian said.
As he understands, the Gangnam area has been moving toward that direction in building libraries in the district as the libraries play a big role in law and order in society and raising the social awareness among the people, Yoon said.
During one of his interviews with a local daily, the chief librarian talked about the functions of the NAL in general. On the side of in “newseum,” a museum of news in Washington D.C., there is quote by Lincoln: “Let the people know the fact, the country will be safe.” It also says the motto of Japan’s national library is verse from the Bible “The truth will set you free.”
Yoo said the libraries should offer precise and fair information the people, a way to fulfill democracy. Asked to comment on libraries in foreign countries he visited, Yoo said the libraries in the U.S. and Japan make up part of the people’s every-day lives. The public libraries in New York, for example, were never inactive; They were full of life. People continuously held discussions on books. He said he even saw a senior citizen reading storybooks to children at the library.
During the initial year of his work, he tried to build a network of sharing the thesis papers, outline with countries around the world. We have been sharing information with channels with the Library of U.S. Congress, Yale University, Stanford University and Korean cultural centers in New York and Britain. He said during his recent visits to the United States and Japan, we talked about expanding channels of information to major cultural centers in other cities.
He said he found not many books or printed matters on Korea stored in major libraries around the world. Also, he met a number of Chinese- born librarians working for public libraries in the United States, he found no Koreans which is related to few books on Korea in those libraries. There should be more books on Korea or Korean books in public libraries in New York, for example, as there are 600,000 Korean-born U.S. citizens living in the largest city in the world.
The U.S. Library of Congress has been collecting huge amount of information, even if they are used only once because they are worth. The library is a custodian of freedom. He said he took very much interest in the Library of Congress because the library once attempted to change the name of Dokdo to the Liancourt Rock in the Sea of Japan. Until this occurred, not many Koreans knew of the library and its importance. From 1986, the U.S, Congressional library called “Tok Island (Korea). The NAL has terminals that can access any papers and any information from libraries in foreign countries through the electronic system.
The NAL sends 1,000 books on Korea to the New York Library annually, while Japan sends 20,000 books to the library. The New York Library wants more Korean books, but the NAL has not been able to do so due to the lack of funds, Yoo said.
Yoo said about 2,400 people come to the NAL on average daily and in addition, about 40,000 people use the electronic library on daily average which comes to 14 million annually. Yoo said Napoleon had a carriage of books even during war as he was so crazy about books. President Lincoln read many books so much so that he used to say “My election and war strategies were completed in libraries.” As the saying, “There are ways in books,” there are hundreds and thousands of ways to succeed in life in libraries, the chief librarian said.
Asked to comment on the number of legislators visiting the NAL, he said the list is no longer needed as libraries are digitally linked these days.
But Yoo said he heard from the wife of the French ambassador that models who often visit libraries tend to have longer careers than others due to their intelligent beauty. The chief librarian takes an immense pride in the Fact Book that the library prints daily and passes them to every National Assembly to keep them updated with what’s happening around them. He first got the idea on the daily publication from his belief that the NAL should collect information, process and produce them to be useful to any one, lawmakers in particular. He said the NAL had not done that before, because majority of those working at the NAL lacked current trends and political views good enough to deal with legislators.
Yoo, before becoming the chief librarian, was the spokesman for the opposition Democratic Party and also a former political reporter for a local daily. He had been in and out of the National Assembly for over 20 years both as a reporter and a party spokesman. He never imagined that he would become the chief librarian even in his wildest dreams, he said. nw

Chief Librarian Yoo Jong-pil The National Assembly Library

Chief Librarian Yoo is with Chief of the North Gyeongsang Province Police Department
after opening the Dokdo Island branch of the NAL on Nov.20.
The book entitled “Dokdo-Takeshima Controversy” which the NAL sent to many libraries around the world containing objective view of the dispute between Korea and Japan over the sovereign rights of the rocky islets in the East Sea.
Other photos show inside of the NAL such as book shelves, and the digital library with computers.