The National Library of Korea (NLK) is one of the libraries which make up the National Digital Library of Korea (NDL). NKL has s:created a host of databases which can be divided into several type
a. Full Text
b. National Table of Contents Database
c. Article Index

Full-text databases were established to provide access to materials regardless of time and place. The library digitizes materials which are 5 or more years old and academic in content. Texts are available in both text (for searching) and image formats. Many of the texts are in Chinese characters, but there are also works in hangul.

Types of materials included:

a. Rare books.
b. Popular novels, especially those published between 1910 and 1930, have also been digitized. These were popular works of literature written in hangul with colorful covers and sold widely at cheap prices. Novels selected by the Korean Novelists' Association;
c. Academic materials and informational materials published from 1945 - 1997;
d. Government documents created between 1894 and 1945 by the old Korean government and the Japanese colonial administration. Original text is available as an image file.
e. Publications by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
f. Academic journal articles: 1,700 academic journals are published in Korea.
g. Old newspapers (pre-1945): article titles are searchable, and the original text is provided as an image. These can be searched by name, article title and date.
h. Doctoral dissertations (pre-1997): table of contents and abstracts are searchable, with original text available as an image file.
i. Pre-1945 foreign materials about Korea: these are texts published in Korea by the Japanese colonial government, in Japan or in other countries. The politics, culture, society and economics of Korea are covered. Table of contents, title and keyword searching are available, and original text is provided in image format.
j. Korean Classics: 100 works. The table of contents is searchable, and full text is provided in image format.
k. Pre-1950 periodicals. These are searchable by the title of article, author, publisher and type of journal.
l. Old maps: 91 books, with an index of place names and locations for searching.

Long-term projects. The NLK is working to digitize foreign collections on Korea held around the world. Their first target is materials held in national archives and elsewhere in the United States.

Copyright issues. If materials are still in copyright, they can be viewed and downloaded only in certain libraries which have arrangements in place to pay for use.

The National Table of Contents Database (2000 - present) covers monographs and periodicals except for reference materials like dictionaries. It includes multi-title collections like short story anthologies. The original language of the materials as seen in the tables of contents is maintained. Searchable and printable, the database can be reached from the NLK, NDL and National Cataloging System homepages.

The Article Index and Abstracts Database is available from the NLK homepage. It also provides links to webpages of commercial publishers.

Access for the visually impaired: expanding service for disabled people is a high priority. Catalogs for government collections as well as public and other libraries which are accessible to the visually impaired are being developed, and currently cover materials published from 1998. MARC records and tables of contents can be downloaded. Also textbooks for university courses published from 2003 on are put into machine-readable format for voice activated systems; they can also be printed in Braille. Service began in March 2004. In order to protect copyright, only visually impaired people certified by the library can use the materials. They are also being integrated into general catalogs and are available through a dedicated page on the NLK site and through national union catalogs.

Purchase of databases for academic information and for Korean Studies, as well as their distribution to public libraries, is also handled by NLK.


National Digital Library: The NLK databases are part of the overall NDL. The NDL provides cataloging, tables of contents and full text. It provides Z39.50 and keyword searching, as well as various search engines.

Member institutions:
National Library of Korea;
National Assembly Library of Korea;
Supreme Court Library of Korea;
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Digital Science Library;
Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI);
Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS);
Korea Agricultural Science Digital Library;
Korea Knowledge Portal.

The Korea Knowledge Portal is operated by the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, which is a specialized government subsidiary of the Ministry of Information and Communication. It provides access to materials from government organizations, including many academic institutions (e.g., National Institute of Korean History).



2. Kristina Troost, Duke University. "Public Service Aspects of Renovations at Duke"

The presentation had two main themes: planning for and building new spaces, and the relationship between renovation and changing public service paradigms.

Duke's East Asian collection is part of International and Area Studies, and has always been part of the main library, Perkins. When Perkins began preparing for renovations, the East Asian collection was thus included in the planning, and East Asian collection staff served on the planning committee. This Library Renovation Committee was comprised of librarians, faculty, grad students and undergrads: Kris Troost chaired its Committee on Public Services.

General Renovation Issues / Solutions:
Students were confused by multiple service points. Now they can pick up books at any circulation desk.
Newspapers and periodicals were merged into a single area; this required allocation of more space.
Reference and public services staff require cross-training.
There were different needs for space and perceptions as to its best use: faculty preferred more space for books; students, more study areas and social space; librarians, better workspaces, instruction and meeting rooms, and space for individual consultations.

Issues Specific to the East Asia Collection:
Prior to the renovations, the East Asia Collection was housed in the sub-basement. A reading room was established in 1991. The stacks had old moving shelves which broke down frequently. Staff were spread out over two floors, so working as a single unit was hard.

International and Area Studies (IAS) is now on the second floor, with windows, a big reading room and its own periodicals and stacks. The proximity of the reading room to the stacks and to staff space has led to an increase in reference questions. Improved space for staff also allows for reference consultations.

IAS librarians take referrals, but they usually don't work on the general reference desk, so they are not as visible.

User Spaces:
The new reading room was designed with users in mind. It is spacious, with ready access to reference and periodicals. Both wireless access and tables with data jacks and power outlets are provided. Before the move, the reference collection was weeded, and annuals were moved to the stacks. This process was quite helpful in reviewing patron needs and usage patterns. The new stacks are fixed rather than moving shelves. Signs in East Asian and Western languages tell people what kinds of books are in that aisle. The result of the redesign is that the reading room is much more heavily used: it is typically full by late afternoon. Group study rooms with computers, whiteboards, tables and chairs were also incorporated into the new space.

Electronic Resources:
Previously, computers were too locked down to install CD-Roms, and students had to use them in staff offices. Now a more flexible model has been developed. Users can log in and have access to everything, and it is easier to install CDs. "Productivity software," such as word processing, spreadsheets and web software, are also available on library terminals so students can go directly from research to writing. This was done as part of the preparation for an Information Commons: everything done for the main library was also done for the East Asian Collection. Greater standardization of computing facilities was another result of the planning process. For example, computer labs will now all have IMEs and the ability to print East Asian languages, and students can print from any terminal. Networking lets student access work all over campus.

Stacks:
About 600,000 books had to be sent offsite. Barcoding allowed staff to check to see what materials haven't moved. Books which had never come to the desk for barcoding (i.e., had not been borrowed for some time) were pulled. Staff ran reports and created smart barcodes for these materials. During the barcoding, decisions were made about what to send offsite and what to keep in the library for browsing. Faculty were encouraged to review materials as part of this process, but there was not a big response. For periodicals, the availability of indexing, how the journal was to be used (last minute or extended), and its likely readership were the main criteria for sending offsite.

Conclusions:
The result of this redesign is that the use of space has increased. The library is now open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Circulation numbers are also up, as are reference statistics. With the new facilities and greater visibility of reference staff, there is more faculty interest in individual and class instruction. Overall, this was a successful renovation with some unanticipated benefits.



3. Ellen Hammond, Yale University. "Deconstructing Public Services: New Ways for East Asian Librarians to Think About Our 'Publics' and 'Services'"

The inevitable move from print format into a digital future makes us realize that we as librarians will spend our time in quite different ways. This does not necessarily have to be painful, and we have service strengths as East Asian librarians which help us in this process. In particular, we need to expand our definition of what constitutes our "public." What user groups have we been ignoring? What might our new user groups be? We also need to rethink what our services wil be. To some extent, we have already begun doing these things unconsciously.

Environmental Scan: What's Out There in Libraries Now?:
Current changes in the larger environment have many positive aspects for us. These include globalization, the spread of East Asian language courses to high schools, the internationalization of U. S. universities, and, with the decline of area studies paradigms, the greater integration of East Asian collections academically into the broader world of scholarship and organizationally into university library systems.

The Research Library of the Future: "Diffuse"; "Recombinant"; and "Recon and Procon":
Wendy Lougee, in a 2002 article, uses the term "diffuse" to describe the change in the nature of libraries as we move from a focus on collections to a focus on expertise. Information is no longer based in library facilities, but is now campus-wide. This can be expanded from campus-wide to worldwide. In this new model, librarians should be not so much supporters as collaborators.

The idea of "recombinant" comes from Lorcan Dempsey. In the future, services now bound up with the library will have to be disentangled and reworked. For example, library collections and services should have a presence in course management sites, rather than reliance on the library homepage exclusively.

The recent Janus conference, in which ARL librarians talked about collection development goals, discussed the concepts of "recon" and "procon." "Recon" refers to the mass digitization of all print materials, which must be done quickly. "Procon" proposes that everything in the future should be produced. Collection developers should focus their time on developing special collections, not on title-by-title selection for the general collection. The latter should be a shared core collection available across libraries and institutions.

Publics:
East Asian collections were designed originally around the needs of a small scholarly community, "Orientalists" working in the humanities. We have continued to be geared largely to this group, even as the field and our potential and actual users have transformed. In the post-WWII period with the emergence of area studies, an undergraduate population in East Asian Studies, language learners and K-12 teachers began to be increasingly numerous parts of our constituency. From the 1990s and on, border-crossing researchers, students from East Asia, and undergraduate readers of CJK scripts have also emerged as East Asian collection users. These publics are already in place.

In the future, we need to expand consciously our idea of our publics to include university administrators, professional school and branch libraries, our colleagues in the main library, students abroad, and branch campuses. In order to do this, we need to drastically rethink our service mission.

Services Unbound:
For university administrators:
Public services can be thought of as consultations. We can support the international efforts of university presidents and other administrators as they travel the world. This would let us make sure that the library is included as universities expand and evolve. We can provide input on strategic planning, take part in the creation of libraries in other parts of the world, etc.

For branch libraries:
One option is to embed staff in branch libraries and professional schools. The growth of electronic resources has made us newly aware of these parts of the university library and faculty. These institutions often do not have CJK staff. At Yale, users spend their time at branch libraries. East Asian collection staff now try to go out to where users are--e.g., Tao Yang, the head of public services, spends two days at the Social Sciences Library. The next step is to try to do this virtually as well as physically.

For main library colleagues:
Collection managers need advice as more databases begin to include CJK content. We can offer our expertise to colleagues who are negotiating for these products. As systems staff try to populate some of the federated searching database packages, we can give advice on how to approach the Asian Studies portion. These are not direct public services to the user, but they are a mediated public service which ultimately benefits our users.

For Faculty:
Collaboration with faculty will still be important, but it will be different. Course management software provides an opportunity for libraries to participate in instruction. We should also try to get information literacy approaches into courses, especially by teaching in classes. Archiving the research cycle through institutional repositories is another approach. For example, the University of Rochester Library takes a major role in stewarding intellectual research at its university. Collection librarians are responsible for working with faculty to get this done. Digitization for teaching and managing relationships with overseas libraries are also areas where we can cooperate with faculty. We can also expect to get more and more involved in negotiating information resources support for students who are overseas but who may not know languages.

For Students:
Organization of content at point of need is crucial. In reference, search and production, we need to support demand. For example, if students use Google, make sure the library resources are findable; if they use cellphones, etc., make resources and assistance available via those means. Teaching of information literacy skills is an evolving field. We should also look into providing technologies for language learners.

Roles and Skills:
Roles for service providers, then, could be to
facilitate resource discovery;
collaborate in teaching and course support;
consult on all phases of research cycles; and,
manage production and presentation of digital collections.

Necessary skills will include:
teaching ability;
instructional design;
digital presentation and portal design;
usability assessment;
marketing and public relations; and,
institutional repository use.

Conclusions:
East Asian librarians need to pay attention to these trends. In particular, we need to think more broadly about user groups, and rethink roles as collections change. Everything is becoming public services.

How can we find the time to incorporate these new demands and roles? In practice, we are already on the way. We can seize hiring opportunities to redefine our jobs, reorient our thinking, and collaborate more on tasks. We already multitask, and are used to doing different jobs. Perhaps we may just need to rethink things we are already doing as public services.

Do we reconstruct public services? We are used to thinking of public services as reference and instruction, but it's a lot more. Moreover, it's not really a discrete function--boundaries are blurring. This suggests a challenge for CEAL. Does our organizational structure help us prepare for the digital future? Do we need a public services committee per se? How does it differ from the library technology committee? We can expect that public services and technical processing will even begin to overlap.



4. Sharon Domier, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "Public Services in a Digital Age: The need for Proactive East Asian Studies Librarians"

A six-month sabbatical provided time for Sharon Domier to think about her job. Her project was to write a handbook for people who wanted to do research using Japanese libraries. In order to figure out what was good and bad, she had to do research herself. In the process, she used ILL, visited a number of libraries, and asked reference questions. She realized that with a new project, she didn't know the right words and questions to ask, so she often ran into problems. She also talked a lot to students and faculty. All of this gave her a new perspective on librarianship.

Many of the researchers she spoke with knew little about librarians: they seemed to view them as little more than a book retrieval service. They did not see them as collaborators. Librarians need to be proud, vocal and visible.

The Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst gave a talk at their library and criticized librarians for giving services away for free. Although the free provision of information is an important value to librarians, the Chancellor's challenge raises some interesting points. The librarian's job is not just to provide materials or, increasingly, links, but is also to teach people how to use them well. Moreover, we can think of ways to exact a "price" for the services we provide: for example, asking faculty to write letters of support for Japan Foundation grants or to justify expensive purchases; or, requesting their participation in collection development or their feedback on services.

Partnership:
Librarians should partner with faculty and students rather than "serve" them. This requires that we be able to communicate and trust as equals. For instance, her faculty now let her know when they are beginning to work on a new project so she can advise on what's available.

The nature of academia is to be hierarchical and specialized. Librarians, however, cross those boundaries to make information available to all. Unlike many others, we are genuinely interested in what faculty are doing. This allow us to provide unique services and gives us a vantage point from which to cooperate with faculty.

Increasing Visibility:
There are many ways to make ourselves better known. We can attend faculty lectures and join study groups where scholars present research to get feedback. Librarians can contribute both on content and on resources. Another approach is to join a listserve, such as H-JAPAN, and answer questions. Surprisingly people often don't know about or have forgotten resources that we see as standard.

Fostering a Culture of Respect in Academia:
Particularly in scholarly forums, people are afraid to ask questions or to speak up, as they don't want to look stupid. The strength of librarians is our openness to different research topics. This can be helpful to many academics. We also have some responsibility to speak up and insist that people be respectful of others' research interests and inquiries. Junior faculty in particular may be afraid to offend the powers that be.

Becoming Involved in Teaching:
Librarians should not just provide information, but actively teach research skills. Librarians should be recognized, both by others and by themselves, as teachers. Sharon co-teaches a bibliography course on how to use Japanese libraries. After her sabbatical, she changed her approach because she realized how much people actually don't know. For example, neither students nor faculty had thought much about how romanization is used, where and when. There was a discrepancy between the romanization systems used by the library and the ones taught in classes. Historically, there has not been much coordination between language instruction and libraries, and this has an impact on students' ability to do research. Now she gives students and faculty members detailed romanization information as well as classification schemes. Sharing of information with faculty as well as with other colleagues is crucial. We should share things we've been working on ourselves; attend meetings and introduce ourselves; and in general, speak up, participate, and make ourselves visible in the larger university and scholarly environment. This also lets us get feedback about what we need to do as librarians.

Conclusion:
Talk loudly, often, and knowledgeably!


5. Sharon Yang, Harvard University. "Announcement on Migrating Harvard-Yenching ILL into the OCLC National ILL Program"

Harvard-Yenching Library will be migrating from CLIO to ILLiad this summer. The organizational symbol is HMY. Lending via ILLiad began in June 2006; borrowing will begin in December. In other words, from June to December, borrowing will still be via CLIO. Once Harvard-Yenching becomes an OCLC ILL supplier, other libraries which use OCLC / ILLiad can submit ILL requests directly via OCLC. IFM is the preferred billing system. This should reduce paperwork. For those who don't use OCLC, Harvard-Yenching is working with the Harvard College Library to develop a web lending form. To get this form, e-mail Harvard-Yenching ILL (hyillweb@fas.harvard.edu), and staff will send it. It will not be posted publicly.

It is hoped that once ILLiad is up and running, Harvard-Yenching can provide more organized and efficient ILL services.


6. Questions and Comments:
Amy Heinrich (Columbia University) agreed that our user group has expanded dramatically and that we need to serve colleagues in the libraries and on the faculty in new and different ways. She felt that Ellen Hammond had underestimated the amount of work that needs to be done, because books aren't going away soon. Print-related work remains along with all these new demands. That seems to be the coming crisis for East Asian librarians--we may have to do things less well because we have so much more to do. One solution to this problem is Sharon Domier's: we have to talk louder and participate more. We should go to discussion groups, join listserves, and meet people individually. She compared the idea of a totally digital library with the concept, current in the 1980s, of the coming paperless society, and expressed skepticism that print (and its related work) would vanish anytime soon.

Julia Tung (Stanford University) remarked that she has always been proud to be a librarian. Prior to her recent retirement, she did a lot of fundraising, started initiatives, etc. Even post-retirement, she like to stay involved with library developments and work. Maybe sometimes librarians are ignored; but there is great vitality in the profession.

Sumie Ota (New York Public Library) noted that she works with many experts whose native language is not English. Many are shy and less comfortable about participating in the kinds of forums advocated. She herself often proofreads for such people, and she sees that many are not confident.

Sharon Domier responded that the problem is not language, and that people should not worry about grammar, vocabulary etc. so much. Our skills reside in searching and helping, and we can do that across language barriers. For instance, one can work one-on-one rather than via listserves.