The Condition of the Korean Collection in U.S. Libraries

Journal of East Asian Libraries Volume 1993 Number 99 Article 6-1-1993 The Condition of the Korean Collection in U.S Libraries Yoon-Whan Choe Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jeal BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Choe, Yoon-Whan (1993) "The Condition of the Korean Collection in U.S Libraries," Journal of East Asian Libraries: Vol 1993 : No 99 , Article Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jeal/vol1993/iss99/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of East Asian Libraries by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive For more information, please contact scholarsarchive@byu.edu, ellen_amatangelo@byu.edu THE CONDITION OF THE KOREAN COLLECTIONS IN U.S LIBRARIES Yoon-whan Choe University of Washington INTRODUCTION This paper* is based on data derived mainly from the periodic surveys published in the Committee on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) Bulletin and a survey which I conducted in March 1992 These surveys are not as complete as one might wish The CEAL surveys, for instance, make no reference to the fast-growing Korean collection at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, and this may not be the only omission My own survey was vitiated by somewhat uneven responses to the questionnaires I sent out However, it is not the aim of this paper to assemble statistics as such Rather, the aim is to describe the dominant trends in the field, to identify some of the pressing needs, and to make suggestions by way of initiating a discussion on the future of the Korean collections in U.S libraries OVERVIEW Korean collections in U.S libraries have developed in tandem with Korean studies in universities Both have come a long way in the past four decades Before 1950, subjects on Korea were taught at a handful of universities as part of a broad East Asia survey, often by a Japan or China specialist Needless to say, there was not a single Korean collection to speak of in the whole country It took a war to spark an interest in the history, language, and culture of Korea The instruction of the Korean language in a public institution was initiated by an army special training program in 1950 as part of the military's response to the outbreak of the Korean War A few universities followed suit, taking it one step further by offering courses on Korean history and culture in addition to language It was also in 1950 that the Library of Congress began to collect Korean-language materials, 'Presented at the Conference on "Enhancing Korean Studies: Scholarship and Libraries" held at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C on October 8-10, 1992 before the war, three U.S Foreign Service officers were trained in Korean at the Defense Language Institute in 1947 and 1948 See Donald S MacDonald, "The Study of Korea in the United States," Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch 65 (1990): 41-47 Arthur W Hummel, "The Growth of the Orientalia Collections," Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions 11, no (February 1954): 81 32 followed by the Harvard-Yenching Library in 1951 Before the decade was over, four more Korean collections were in operation, at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University The war has long ceased to be the driving force behind the development of Korean studies in the United States but deepening trade ties between the U.S and Korea and a sizable Korean presence on campus and in society at large provided a new impetus, and both Korean studies and Korean libraries have continued to grow in the United States Although there are still only a small number of universities which routinely offer a range of Korean studies courses, a 1987-88 study estimates the total size of the Korean studies field to be around 350 scholars The past few years alone saw the launching of several new Korean studies programs across North America: on the West Coast, at the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of British Columbia; in the Midwest, at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and Indiana University; and on the East Coast, at Cornell University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook All these institutions, along with the Center for Research Libraries, are actively collecting Korean materials The 1991 CEAL survey lists 43 libraries in North America which have some Korean-language materials The real figure should be higher because the survey does not include the collections of public libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, and some universities such as the State University of New York at Stony Brook The combined holdings of all Korean collections in North America are now estimated to exceed half a million volumes TABLE I: The Holdings of Major Korean Collections in the U.S in 1980 and 1991 Institutions Volumes 1991 Berkeley UCLA Chicago 39,113 16,243 9,399 Volumes 1980 25,810 2,500 2,679 Harvard University Council of East Asian Studies, East Asia in Harvard's Libraries (undated pamphlet), p Michael Robinson and Stefan Tanaka, "Survey on Korean Studies" (unpublished paper), The Joint Committee on Korean Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council in cooperation with the East Asian Studies Center of the University of Southern California (1989): "The Current Status of East Asian Collections in American Libraries: Table 1," CEAL Bulletin, no 95 (February 1992): 32-33 33 36,269 Columbia 76,358 Harvard 36,380 Hawaii 100,857 LC 21,700 (6/30/90) NY Public Library TABLE I (Cont'd): The Holdings of Major Korean Collections in the U.S in 1980 and 1991 Institutions Volumes 1991 Princeton USC U of Washington 24,913 43,413 22,072 68,011 1,500 Volumes 1980 10,223 15,699 44,611 7,259 NA 24,225 406,852 222,382 The vigorous growth of Korean collections in the United States looks all the more remarkable when it is compared with that of the East Asian libraries in general The latter grew 30% in the eleven years between 1980 and 1991 Korean collections grew 83% during the same period TABLE II: Growth of Korean and East Asian Materials in North America Including Microforms Year Korean 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1988 1989 1990 1991 23,000 75,000 138,000 199,000 274,000 401,661 447,354 467,495 488,728 East Asian 2,556,000 3,858,000 5,376,000 6,702,000 7,926,000 9,355,242 9,832,081 10,002,771 10,311,315 Note: The figure for the Korean materials in 1991 includes the holdings of the New York Public Library which was omitted in the 1991 CEAL survey ^suen-hsuin Tsien, Current Status of East Asian Collections in American Libraries 1974/1975: "Table 5," p 16-17 The figures for 1976 and the subsequent years are based on the data in the CEAL Bulletin, nos 70/71, 87, 90, 92, and 95 34 Korean materials occupied 3.5% of all East Asian materials in North America in 1980 In 1991 it was 4.7%) With the exception of two national libraries, three public libraries, and one special research library, all the U.S libraries with medium- to large-size Korean collections are university libraries However, the preponderance of university libraries should not obscure the vitality of nonacademic collections In response to the needs of the rapidly growing Korean communities in metropolitan areas, the three public libraries are actively expanding their Korean collections The Seattle Public Library has recently set up a Korean collection within its East Asia section; the Los Angeles Public Library has opened a branch library in Korea Town while increasing its overall holdings of Korean-language materials; and there is the fine Korean collection of the New York Public Library long known for its valuable early documents and rare materials mostly deposited by Christian missionaries returning from Korea A few public schools have adopted Korean as an elective foreign language and this is likely to lead to the establishment of Korean-language collections in some public school library systems It is against a backdrop of four decades of impressive growth and development that I shall now turn my attention to the difficult challenges currently facing Korean libraries in this country Many Korean libraries today are trapped in a paradoxical situation where they find themselves steadily falling behind relative to what is demanded of them even while they are apparently moving ahead in absolute terms A confluence of circumstances has rendered a mere incremental, quantitative growth hopelessly inadequate There is a clear need for an innovative approach across the spectrum, but especially in three key areas of library operations, namely, acquisition, access, and personnel ACQUISITION Three factors determine the outcome of a library's acquisition program: the needs of the users, the availability of materials, and the budget Korean libraries have more users today than ever before due to the increase in Korean studies courses and the large enrollment of Korean and Korean-American students in colleges and universities However, it is the diversity of the users as much as their number that significantly affects Korean acquisition programs A Korean library today is expected to support not only scholars in humanities and social sciences as it used to, but also a growing number of researchers in such areas as trade and commerce, and industry and economy Each new field or discipline which a library is called upon to support has its own lengthy list of indispensable periodicals and basic reference tools This adds to the library's problems by forcing it to spread its limited resources thin Under these conditions, it is not inconceivable that a growth in collection size may actually conceal a diminishing capability to meet the real needs of the users 35 Since scholars and researchers desire to be acquainted with all the relevant materials in their particular field, the mere existence of these materials creates a demand for them The recent explosion of publishing activity in South Korea has generated materials in such abundance as to overwhelm the most ambitious and the most richly endowed acquisition program In the two decades between 1970 and 1990, the annual publication of periodicals in South Korea jumped 600% and new titles as much as 858% TABLE III: Annual Publication of Periodicals in Korea Year 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Titles Year 740 852 827 915 979 1,201 1,290 1,337 1,428 1,476 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 Titles 1,215 1,415 1,523 1,620 1,765 1,911 2,134 2,412 3,366 4,238 5,183 ABLE IV: Annual Publication of Books in Korea Year Titles Year Titles 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 2,181 2,516 3,912 6,105 6,115 8,096 9,977 9,090 9,813 11,164 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 13,062 13,618 17,615 18,588 19,113 19,756 22,132 22,425 22,336 20,745 20,903 Han'guk ch'ulp'an yon'gam, (Soul: Taehan Ch'ulp'an Munhwa Hyophoe, 1991): 705 Ibid., p.704 36 Note: This table includes children's books, study aids, and books on science and technology No library outside Korea can hope to acquire more than a fraction of these materials, nor should it even attempt to so However, no serious Korean collection can afford to ignore these figures either because they reflect not merely a boom in the publishing industry but a far-reaching change which has virtually transformed South Korean society The figures from the past few years are especially noteworthy as they are directly linked to an easing of decades of harsh censorship Some of the new publications are either reissues of old materials which have been banned until recently for ideological and political reasons, such as the works of authors who went over to the North, or new materials on subjects which have long been taboo Scholarly works of North Korea are also being made available in reprints Most significant of all, a wide range of old historical texts are being republished, prompting a series of important revisions in historical scholarship Acquisition of these materials is essentially a catch-up operation to fill the yawning gaps in most Korean collections which have for many decades seriously hampered researches on both traditional and contemporary Korea According to my survey, North Korean materials at present comprise 7% of the total holdings of Korean libraries in the United States TABLE V: Percentage of North Korean Materials in Selected Korean Collections in the U.S U.C Berkeley U.C.L.A U Chicago Columbia Harvard U Hawaii L.C Princeton U.S.C U Washington 10 % 1% 1% 10 % % % 13 % % 5% % Average % There has been a marked relaxation of tension on the peninsula and contacts with the North are on the rise Although the absence of any North Korean bibliographies, book lists, or library catalogs poses a problem, there are dealers in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Tokyo through whom North Korean materials can be purchased There is as yet no direct acquisition channel to Pyongyang, but the Foreign Languages Publishing House and Export and Import Service in Pyongyang may be able to fill overseas purchase orders For gift and exchange arrangements, Kim II Sung University Library and the Grand People's Study 37 House seem the logical places to contact As more materials from the North are made available, demands for them will also grow The massive publication of Yijo Sillok in four hundred volumes and Choson Yumul Togam, among others, have attracted considerable interest abroad The growing need to acquire North Korean materials in addition to those from the South is another source of strain on already tight resources There is a considerable output of research papers by Korean specialists in China and Japan but, due to budgetary constraints, few are being added to Korean collections in the United States on a regular basis The increase in the volume of available materials came hand in hand with a spiraling cost, and both came at a time when most institutions were — and still are — reeling under drastic fiscal retrenchment There is no figure available which tells us precisely how much was spent each year for acquisition of Korean materials in U.S libraries, but we may hazard the assumption that the acquisition budget for Korean materials increased roughly at the same rate as that of the East Asian libraries as a whole, for which there are data TABLE VI: Annual Acquisition Budget for East Asian Materials Year Dollars 1965-1970 1970-1975 1975-1980 1980-1985 1989 1990 1991 1,400,503 1,972,039 2,510,702 NA 6,173,454 6,990,172 7,489,480 Note: The figures for 1965-1970, 1970-1975, and 1975-1980 represent five year averages The combined acquisition budget of all East Asian collections rose 399% between 1970 and 1990 If we assume that the acquisition budget for Korean materials rose at a similar rate during the same period, the increase was effectively neutralized by the rise in the price of Korean books The price in won of an average Korean book in 1990 was 723% over that of 1970 TABLE VII: Average Price of Korean Books in Won CEAL Bulletin, nos 70/71, 90, 92, and 95 l0 Han'guk Ch'ulp'an Yon'gam, 1980, 1981, and 1991 38 10 Year Won Year Won 1970 720 1975 1,267 1971 940 1976 1,368 1972 921 1977 1,571 1973 1,060 1978 1,883 1979 2,814 1974 1,241 TABLE VII (Cont'd): Average Price of Korean Books in Won Year Won Year Won 1980 3,504 1986 4,401 1981 4,027 1987 4,536 1982 4,242 1988 5,043 1983 4,115 1989 5,346 1984 3,645 1990 5,932 1985 4,582 Note: This table is inclusive of some categories usually not purchased by Korean collections in the U.S., such as children's books, study aids, and books on science and technology The dollar has grown stronger vis-a-vis the won in recent years, but the gain has not been large enough to make a dent in the rising cost of books for Korean libraries in the United States The Library of Congress paid 55% more for an average Korean book in 1990 than it did in 1984 TABLE VIII: The Average Price of South Korean Books in the Library of Congress Acquisition 11 Year Dollars Year Dollars The Library of Congress Current Foreign Monograph Receipts," an annual report published in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin 39 1984 1985 1986 1987 15.09 18.85 21.96 1988 1989 1990 14.14 13.47 12.22 13.64 The acquisition pattern of research libraries is different from that of the Library of Congress According to my survey, five U.S research libraries — Harvard, University of Washington, UC Berkeley, University of Hawaii, and Columbia — paid $27.89 on the average for a Korean book in 1991 The high cost of books seems to be the main culprit behind the slowdown in the growth of Korean collections since 1988, precisely at a time when both the demand for and the supply of Korean materials were rapidly increasing TABLE IX: Annual Additions to Korean Collections, Including Microforms 12 Year Volumes 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1988 1989 1990 1991 5,000 10,000 13,000 12,000 15,000 22,365 20,485 20,794 19,714 One bright spot in the otherwise somber picture is the relatively large volume of acquisitions through gift and exchange According to my survey, gifts and exchanges accounted for nearly one fifth of all the acquisitions made by the ten largest collections in 1991 TABLE X: Percentage of Purchases and Gift & Exchanges in the 1991 Acquisitions at Large Korean Collections Institution LC Harvard Columbia Berkeley U Washington Purchase 80 90 85 75 80 % % % % % Gift & Exchange 20 10 15 25 20 % % % % % Tsien, Current Status: "Table 2," p 12; CEAL Bulletin, nos 70-71, 87, 90, 92, and 95 40 Hawaii NYPL UCLA USC Princeton 80 90 70 80 80 % % % % % 81 % 20 10 30 20 20 % % % % % 19 % A successful gift and exchange program requires close cooperation with various institutions in Korea It entails an ongoing consultation between the parties in order to ensure timely updating of exchange lists, an uninterrupted flow of serial issues, and prompt notification of items not available for exchange Of crucial importance is the ability to secure U.S university publications for Korean research libraries Exchange partners in Korea routinely provide: * government publications * university and college publications, including those by academic departments and provincial universities * publications of research institutions and affiliated organizations * other noncommercial publications and hard-to-get materials Dependence on gifts and exchanges is especially heavy for government publications The average percentage of gifts and exchanges in the total acquisition of government publications is as high as 40% according to my survey of selected collections TABLE XI: Percentage of Gifts and Exchanges in the Acquisition of Government Publications Institution Gifts & Exchanges Library of Congress Harvard Berkeley Univ of Washington Hawaii UCLA USC Princeton 80 25 25 20 40 75 50 % % % % % % % % 40 % Although gifts and exchanges are an important source of certain types of materials, their overall impact on a collection's acquisition program should not be exaggerated, considering the inherently limited range of the materials involved 41 A gap is inexorably widening between surging acquisition needs and lagging fiscal supports and there is no prospect of this trend reversing itself any time soon This is perhaps the single greatest problem facing the Korean collections today; it is a problem that is not about to go away We will have to deal with it in one way or another if we are to ensure the continued success of Korean libraries in the United States The solution I would like to propose is simple in concept: that all the Korean libraries in North America accept interdependence as the basic premise of their operation and jointly develop a structure of regional and national cooperation The idea is not new; it has long been standard practice among many libraries to share materials already in their collections through the interlibrary loan system and the national databases A logical extension of the principle underlying this practice demands that all the libraries participating in the interlibrary loan system coordinate their acquisition activities as well A cooperative acquisition program on a regional and national scale will go a long way in eliminating costly duplication Not all materials, of course, lend themselves to this program; most periodicals and frequently circulated titles need to be on the shelf for immediate use and must be acquired by individual libraries But there is a long list of expensive and infrequently used titles which a library can lend without causing undue inconvenience to its users as long as these materials are available within the system For example, the vast amount of materials of the Choson period in the Kyujangkak Library of Seoul National University are now available in microform, but at a cost few libraries can afford A cooperative acquisition arrangement could be made under which Institution A purchases the materials from the early period, Institution B from the middle period, and Institution C from the late period, thereby placing a complete set of materials at the disposal of any interested scholar in North America The details of each arrangement could be modified in any number of ways to accommodate the particular requirements of individual acquisitions Once in place, a cooperative program could serve as a powerful instrument for the promotion of Korean libraries in North America In a time of shrinking budgets, the continued vitality of Korean libraries depends to a significant degree on our ability to attract outside funds A cooperative program is ideally situated to approach potential donors with an authoritative assessment of the overall needs of Korean libraries in this country It could also lead a concerted campaign to establish a depository of Korean government publications in the United States In this task as in the other, a voice speaking for the entire community of Korean studies and Korean libraries in the United States will carry immeasurably greater weight than will a number of small voices raised on behalf of competing and overlapping local needs ACCESS A prerequisite for a nationwide cooperative acquisition program is a nationwide system of shared access to the acquired materials Another compelling argument for such a system of resource sharing is the skewed geographical distribution of Korean collections in North 42 America which puts these collections beyond the reach of a significant number of Korean specialists My survey shows that all the major collections, without exception, are concentrated on the East and the West Coasts TABLE XII: Size of Selected Korean Collections in North America Institution Collection Size A Over 10,000 Volumes Library of Congress Harvard Univ of Washington UC Berkeley Columbia Univ of Hawaii UCLA USC Princeton New York Public Library TABLE XII (Cont'd): Size of Selected Korean Collections in North America Collection Size Institution B 5,000-10,000 Volumes Chicago library of Congress Law Library Indiana Yale Illinois Univ of Pennsylvania Univ of British Columbia LA Public Library SUNY at Stony Brook C Under 5,000 Volumes Univ of Toronto Univ of Maryland Univ of Washington Law Univ of Pittsburgh Georgetown University Brown University Ohio State University Univ of Wisconsin Seattle Public Library Center for Research Libraries 43 Note: University of Michigan, University of Kansas, and St John's University have not responded to my questionnaire as of this writing All the collections in Group A and more than two-thirds of those in Group B and Group C are located on either the East or the West Coast These collections account for well over 90% of all the Korean materials in North America Although the collections in the Midwest grew somewhat faster than those in other regions between 1980 and 1991, they still hold no more than 7% of the materials TABLE XIII: Geographical Distribution of Korean Materials Excluding Microforms 13 Areas East Coast Midwest South/Mountain West Coast 1980 169,323 11,749 2,350 86,145 1991 (62.8 (4.4 (0.9 (32.0 %) %) %) %) 261,428 30,591 2,265 159,622 (57.6 (6.7 (0.5 (35.0 %) %) %) %) 453,906 volumes 269,567 For the scholars and researchers between the two coastal regions, the interlibrary loan system is about the only means of access to most Korean library resources Library resources are only as useful as they are accessible and the accessibility of given materials largely hinges on how well they are cataloged An uncataloged item is only accessible to a user standing right by the shelf and an item in a card catalog only to those going over the card file However, the advent of computerized on-line cataloging ushered in a new era, and many things are now possible which were barely imaginable not long ago CEAL Bulletin, no 95 44 when a user looking for a particular title had to rely on bibliographies, book catalogs, or personal visits to the library Today's technology can bring full bibliographical information on any document in any major library as close as one's personal computer The obvious way to maximize resource sharing among Korean libraries would be the full utilization of the two national databases, the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) Online Library Union Catalog and the Research Libraries Group's Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) But this does not eliminate the time-consuming tasks of sorting, cataloging, and inputting an enormous amount of data A survey of eleven leading Korean collections in the United States shows that most of the materials are cataloged, but only 45% of the cataloged materials are in the national databases TABLE XIV: Status of Cataloging in Large Korean Collections Institution Cataloged On-line 10 % UC Berkeley 100 % UCLA 50 % 80 % Chicago 60 % 70 % Columbia 20 % 90 % Harvard % 95 % Hawaii 30 % 80 % LC 90 % 90 % TABLE XIV (Cont'd): Status of Cataloging in Large Korean Institution Cataloged NY Public Library Princeton USC U of Washington 90 95 90 75 % % % % 84 % On-line 90 16 80 14 % % % % 45 % As of January 1992, a total of 55,253 records have been entered into the OCLC database, of which 36,430 items are in both Korean and romanization, and the rest are in romanization only; RLIN has 62,856 items, including serial records, in its database as of March 1992 The slow progress in on-line cataloging is caused mainly by manpower shortages, the consequences, of course, of the general shortage in funding On-line cataloging, however, "saves" money by enabling libraries to realize the maximum value on the investment they have already made in acquisition Funds for on-line cataloging will have to be a highpriority item in any funding request for the establishment of a nationwide system of cooperative acquisition and of resource sharing The access to Korean materials will be greatly facilitated by a few additional measures Large Korean collections with Korean librarians on their staff routinely receive reference 45 requests from small Korean collections, non-Korean libraries, and individual users The conversion of the cataloging information in the possession of large collections into a machine-readable format will benefit far more than the customary users of these collections Another valuable new reference tool will be made available when the compilation, currently in progress, of the Union List of Korean Serial Holdings in North America is finally completed An exciting possibility that deserves serious exploration is the expanded use of fax capabilities which permits the swift transmission of journal articles from one collection to another This will probably require the consent of the parent library to absorb part of the cost Less ambitious is a project, which I am currently working on, to produce a guide, or rather a profile, designed to put some useful information on individual Korean collections at the disposal of the users PERSONNEL A crucial element in any effort to improve Korean collections is the caliber of the library personnel Few innovations, if any, are possible in either acquisition or access without the expertise of trained librarians who combine an ability to take advantage of the latest technological advances with a specialized knowledge of Korean bibliography, book markets, and current trends in Korean studies At a more mundane level, there is often no recourse other than the experiences and vigilance of the personnel to cope with certain peculiarities of Korean acquisition Publishing activities in Korea have expanded so fast and in so many different directions that no publisher's announcements or dealer's lists can cover them all, especially those published noncommercially Before anyone realizes it on this side of the ocean, useful materials go out of print and out of stock — university publications, various limited editions, dissident publications, and government materials much of which are not commercially available The quality of the acquisition of individual collections largely depends on the staffs ability to build and maintain a network of personal relationships with dealers, librarians, officers of various academic departments, and government agencies in Korea At present the staffing of Korean libraries and, for that matter, East Asian libraries in general is far from adequate, which should surprise no one, given the level of resources devoted to personnel Between 1980 and 1991 the combined holdings of all East Asian libraries in the United States grew 30%, whereas the full-time equivalent (FTE) grew only 9% The story is much the same for Korean libraries According to my survey, the top ten Korean collections have 18.64 FTE among them for a combined holdings count of 397,453 volumes, or FTE for each 21,323 volumes 46 TABLE XV: Comparison of Collection Size and FTE Institution Berkeley UCLA Columbia Harvard Hawaii LC NY Public Library Princeton USC U of Washington Collection Size (1991} 39,113 16,243 36,269 76,358 36,380 100,857 21,700 10,223 15,699 44,611 397,453 (1990) 14 FTE 1.5 0.14 18.64 The FTE figure is blind to the extent of the staff member's professional preparation Five Korean collections (Berkeley, Harvard, Hawaii, LC, and U of Washington) have professional librarians assigned full-time to the collection One collection, Columbia, has a full-time paraprofessional, and three collections (NYPL, Princeton, and USC) have a professional librarian each who devotes part of his or her time to the Korean collection There is no librarian assigned specifically to the Korean collection in the UCLA library Those collections without a professional Korean librarian make with student assistants or non-Korean librarians often ill-equipped to properly perform such essential tasks as acquisition, cataloging, bibliographical checking, or reference assistance It is to be hoped that all the major collections will have a qualified Korean librarian on their staff, since it is to these collections that smaller Korean collections and non-Korean libraries turn regularly for reference and other services One position for a librarian has been created at the USC recently, but another at Columbia was eliminated Chicago and UCLA may each announce a position in the near future, but this will hardly change the overall picture A proposal for the development of the Korean collections in the United States can hardly be taken seriously unless it contains a credible plan for personnel training The training program may include periodic conferences, workshops, or personnel exchanges It may also sponsor the publication of a sorely needed training manual specifically tailored to the requirements of Korean librarianship in the United States Such a manual, once adopted for general use, will help standardize the performance of student assistants, non-Korean librarians, and beginning Korean librarians so that what they today at many smaller collections — cataloging, romanization, word division, etc — could later be incorporated with minimum confusion into a nationwide system of acquisition and resource sharing 14 CEAL Bulletin, no 95 The figure for the New York Public Library is from CEAL Bulletin, no 92 The FTE figures were obtained through my survey 47 ( Appendix Growth of Korean Collections 48 in North America (by Volumes) I) ( Appendix Average Annual Additions to Korean Collections 2) (Volumes) 30000 25000 - 20000 - 15000 - • 1960 11 1965 1970 1975 10000 - 5000 - 49 • 1980 • 1988 S 1991 ( Distribution of Korean Collections • over 100.000 2.27% 1,000-4,999 25% 50 by Size Appendi (Volumes) f Appendix Geographical Distribution of 51 Korean Resources - 1980 4) ( Appendix Geographical Distribution 52 of Korean Resources - 1991 5) ( Appendix Accessibility to Korean Resources: 53 Selected Korean Libraries i ( Appendi Accessibility to Korean Resources: Selected Korean Libraries 54 ... culture of Korea The instruction of the Korean language in a public institution was initiated by an army special training program in 1950 as part of the military's response to the outbreak of the Korean. .. pressing needs, and to make suggestions by way of initiating a discussion on the future of the Korean collections in U.S libraries OVERVIEW Korean collections in U.S libraries have developed in. .. a Korean book in 1991 The high cost of books seems to be the main culprit behind the slowdown in the growth of Korean collections since 1988, precisely at a time when both the demand for and the