KF뉴스레터-East Asia Library of the University of Washington

East Asia Library of the University of Washington

Located in the beautiful port city of Seattle, the University of Washington's (UW) East Asia Library is very proud of its fine collection of Korean materials, renowned as the second largest among academic research libraries in North America. Opening in 1937 with a Rockefeller grant for the acquisition of Chinese materials, the East Asia Library started collecting Korean language materials during the Second World War as an outgrowth of the U.S. Army Specialized Training Program for Korean language instruction. The interest in Korean language and Korean Studies has increased steadily ever since, and over half a century later has given rise to a Korean collection with about 80,000 volumes in all formats.

Korean Studies at UW
The Korean Studies program at UW has been dubbed as a "Mecca" for Korean Studies. It has produced numerous world-renowned scholars through exceptional programs anchored by a dedicated teaching and research staff. Talented students from around the world are attracted to the UW program year after year, and with the growth of the program has come the expansion of the collection. Although users of the Korean collection are predominantly professors and students in the program, the school's Korean-American community and scholars across the country take advantage of its rich resources.

The Collection
East Asia Library, Gowen Hall

The collection itself centers around humanities and social science disciplines and covers a wide range of topics in Korean, English and other East-Asian languages as well. In addition, the library is a member of the Korean Collection Consortium of North America (KCCNA), funded by the Korea Foundation since 1994, and has been assigned specialty subject areas such as women's studies, modern poetry, newspapers in microfilm, and materials relating to the Gyeongsang province of South Korea. As such, the librarian makes regular visits to local schools and research organizations in Korea to ensure that the collection remains up-to-date. The library operates under the care of one full-time reference/collection development librarian, one half-time cataloger, one assistant, and several student employees.

Services and Bibliographic Tools
UW libraries are very service-oriented in terms of accessing and making use of library materials. There is even a strategic plan at the university to make all campus libraries available at any time and from any place. For many years, the library's system has supported the input and display of Korean characters in the online catalog. Another great example of services offered at UW libraries is the option of having books delivered to a user's library of choice. This way, users don't have to go down to the stacks to locate books. Given changes in usage patterns and the accelerated availability of digital resources, the Korean collection is also actively expanding its electronic resources to better support users and their needs.

Periodicals reading room

The Korean collection has assisted scholars by creating an indexing tool and contents database for better bibliographic control of materials. The tools described below are available free to scholars who are affiliated with UW and to Korean Studies scholars around the world.

Name Index of Trial Records during the Japanese Colonial Period
http://db.lib.washington.edu/nitr
The name index, compiled by the library staff at UW, is a tool for locating any individual's case among the three hundred eighty-five volumes of the reprint set of trial records from the Japanese court in Korea from the late 1920s to 1944. The original set was reprinted from the microfilm edition owned by 'Hanguk Kidok Kyohoesa Yonguhoe' (The Historical Society of the Korean Christian Church) in Seoul. The records comprise official summons, descriptions of defendants, the charges against them and the actual court proceedings. One of the most important primary resources on modern Korea, it shows the workings of the Japanese judicial system in Korea and offers a detailed background on Koreans who were prosecuted in the system.

Hanguk Yoktae Munjip ChongsoAuthor/Title Index
http://db.lib.washington.edu/klcni/klcni.htm
Hanguk Yoktae Munjip Chongso (collected works of Korean authors from the tenth to the early twentieth century) is a reprint edition in three thousand volumes of the collected works of over a thousand individual authors mostly from the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. The author/title index for the set, compiled by Korean staff in the East Asia Library, is an indispensable search tool.

Currently the East Asia Library's Korean staff is in the development stages of compiling a table of contents (TOC) database, which indexes article titles and authors from a small and rare periodical collection published around the time of Korean Independence. The database will be a valuable resource for locating unique pieces that reflect the political and ideological changes during the period of the establishment of Korean Independence. The TOC database will be freely available for anyone who visits the Korean collection page at the UW website.

Future Plans and Direction
As more research materials are digitized and become available in full text online, the future of successful library collections lies in the accessible provision of electronic materials to their users. The first step in achieving this goal is to secure sufficient funding for ever-increasing digital resources. For the past ten years, through the Consortium program, the Korea Foundation has financially supported the Korean collection at UW and has amassed a fine collection of print materials in various subjects relating to Korea. In the coming years, continued support from the Foundation will be crucial as the resource sharing program under the Korean Collection Consortium of North America relies increasingly on digital information. This new initiative is under consideration for the establishment of an endowment fund. Accordingly, the UW libraries have begun planning for this important campaign, to better the future of their Korean collection.

한국국제교류재단

East Asia Library of the University of Washington

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East Asia Library of the University of Washington

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