Korean Studies Librarianship Outside of Korea
A Practical Guide and Manual
Edited by
Joy Kim
University of Southern California
Asian Culture Press
For the
Committee on Korean Materials
Council on East Asian Libraries
Association for Asian Studies
2002
© CEAL Committee on Korean Materials retains copyright for all written materials that are original with
this volume.
Published for the CEAL Committee on Korean Materials
by
Asian Culture Press
Chung-gu Changch‛ung-dong 1-ga 48-24
Seoul Korea
Tel: 02-2279-9266
Fax: 02-2272-8823
Email: acp@asianculture.co.kr
Web: www.asianculture.co.kr
KOREAN LIBRARIANSHIP
a Practical Guide and Manual
Table of Contents
Foreword—William B. McCloy
Preface—Kenneth Klein
Introduction—Joy Kim
Acknowledgements—Joy Kim
Chapter I. ROMANIZATION AND WORD DIVISION
(p. 1)
Introduction—Joy Kim
A. The McCune-Reischauer Romanization System
1. The Romanization of Korean According to the McCune-Reischauer System
2. A Step-by-Step Guide to McCune-Reischauer Romanization—Joy Kim
3. Expanded Simplified Tables—Joy Kim
4. Simple Romanization Exercises and Answers—Joy Kim
B. ALA-LC Korean Romanization and Word Division Rules—The Library of Congress
1. Intermediate Romanization/Word Division Exercises & Answers—Joy Kim and the
Library of Congress
2. Advanced Romanization/Word Division Exercises & Answers— Yunah Sung and the
Library of Congress
C. The Revised Romanization of Korean— Ministry of Culture & Tourism, ROK
Chapter II. COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT/ACQUISITIONS—Hyokyoung Lee
A. Selection Tools
B. Gift and Exchange Partners
C. Vendors
D. Core Serials List
(p. 60)
Chapter III. CATALOGING
(p. 95)
A. Searching Tips on Bibliographic Utilities
1. OCLC—Mikyung Kang
2. RLIN—Yunah Sung
B. Reference Tools for Cataloging—Yunah Sung and the Library of Congress (LC)
C. Korean Elements in MARC Cataloging—Yunah Sung
D. Korean Literary Authors Name List—Taemin Park
E. Romanizing Korean Personal Names that Include Two or More Surnames—LC
F. LC Subject Headings with Korean Period Subdivisions—Seunghi Paek
G. Korean Materials from Japanese Period —Mikyung Kang
H. Korean Materials in Classical Chinese—Mikyung Kang
Chapter IV. REFERENCE: BASIC REFERENCE TOOLS —Kyungmi Chun
(p.153)
Chapter V. TECHNOLOGY FOR HANGUL VIEWING/WRITING—Sun-yoon Lee (p.172)
Introduction
A. Using Hangul on English Operating Systems
B. Email/Web Browsing and Authoring
CONTRIBUTORS
(p.180)
Foreword
I am honored and delighted to have the opportunity to make a few remarks at the
beginning of this long-awaited guide for Korean Studies librarians of North
America. In addition to having the privilege of working with the authors in the
Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), I was one of the participants in the
March 2001 Workshop upon which this guide is based. As such, I know firsthand the depth of knowledge and the commitment to our profession of each and
every one of the contributors to this unprecedented work. Further, having been
involved personally with cataloging, acquisitions and reference for Korean
materials over the last thirty years, I am well aware that the challenges of dealing
with these important resources are considerable, particularly since Korean
Studies librarians are few and far between. Hopefully, this guide will ease that
burden somewhat. It is without doubt an important contribution to the
advancement of Korean Studies in the United States and Canada.
On behalf of CEAL, I would to offer special thanks to the University of Southern
California and to the East Asian Library of the University of Chicago who
offered financial and logistical support for the Workshop on which this book is
based. I would also like to express graditude to the Asian Culture Press for their
generous offer to publish this work on our behalf, as well as special thanks to Joy
Kim, Chair of the Korean Materials Committee of CEAL for her leadership and
dedication in seeing this publication to completion. This is a collaborative effort
representing hard work on the part of many individuals. Many, many thanks to
the Korean Studies experts who have made this important contribution possible.
William B. McCloy, President
Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL)
Association for Asian Studies
Preface
If you have opened this book, chances are you have been charged with building a library
collection of Korean language materials. If that were the case, it would be best if you
already know Korean.
One of the most important readers for which this guide has been compiled, though, is the
librarian who does not know Korean, but who has nevertheless taken on responsibility for
a Korean collection. In that case, you have this going for you: Korean is easily the most
approachable of the East Asian languages. This is especially true if you are starting with
a background in Chinese or Japanese. You will already be familiar with such cultural
conventions as naming and dating practices. There are many words that are shared by all
three languages, albeit with different pronunciations. It does not take very long to learn,
for example, that hancha refers to the same thing as hanzi or kanji. Korean is quite
similar to Japanese grammatically, while, on the other hand, the pronunciation of Chinese
loanwords in Korean is very similar to the Chinese pronunciation. It is important to
realize that you are not entering this new venture without some assets on which to rely.
Still, it would be good for you to learn Korean.
Here again, though, Korean is far easier to get a start in than either Chinese or Japanese,
even if you have no background at all in East Asian languages. With just a few hours of
study, you should be able to learn the basics of the phonetic script, hangul, and to begin
sounding out words. With the help of the romanization tables in this guide, you will be
able to at least roughly convert Korean book titles to romanized form, whether or not you
understand any of the words. With the use of a hancha dictionary, which is organized the
same as a hanzi or kanji dictionary, you will be able to romanize those titles also. By the
end of your first day, thus, you should be able to search catalogs—printed or online—and
“read” booklists. Furthermore, with the use of an English/Korean dictionary (or, for that
matter, Japanese/Korean or Chinese/Korean), you could identify keywords to look for in
those booklists, specific to your collecting interests.
With just a little bit more time and effort, you will be able to learn the “alphabetic” order
of hangul. Once you have passed this mark, you will be able to use Korean/English
dictionaries and the meaning of some of those titles will be at least partially within your
grasp. You will also be able to find entries in such reference tools as Korean
encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. Inevitably, your Korean vocabulary will
begin to grow.
Still, it might be good to think about enrolling in a Korean class…
Ken Klein
Head, East Asian Library
University of Southern California
January 2002
Introduction
Library schools in the United States have not offered formal training programs in East
Asian studies librarianship since 1981, forcing most new librarians to get their training on
the job. For most Chinese and Japanese librarians, this is not a major problem. Since the
typical East Asian research collection in the U.S. has more than one Chinese and
Japanese librarian respectively, new librarians to the field can learn from their
experienced colleagues on the job. For Korean studies librarians, the situation is quite
different. Compared to their Chinese and Japanese counterparts, Korean studies librarians
are few in number and geographically far apart, making on-the-job training practically
impossible. Few publications exist that give them the mundane, but very necessary
information to perform their daily duties as Korean studies librarians. Worse, many
institutions with “substantial” Korean collections (10,000 or more volumes) have no
professional librarians with Korean expertise. These libraries typically depend on Korean
studies faculty for selection of materials and student assistants for processing them,
which is far from ideal. The need for a training program or a manual for Korean studies
librarianship has long been felt; but it has become more intense in recent years with the
rapid growth of Korean collections.
As an attempt to fill this gap, the Committee on Korean Materials of the Council on East
Asian Libraries (CEAL) conducted a workshop in March 2001 at the University of
Chicago with 20 participants. With a grant from the Information Services Division of the
University of Southern California and logistical support from the East Asian Library of
the University of Chicago, the first-ever Workshop on Korean Studies Librarianship was
a big success, judging from the reviews from the participants. The materials prepared for
the Workshop form the core of this book, although this volume contains much more
information than was presented at the Workshop.
Reflecting the subtitle, this book aims at providing practical help to those who need to
develop and service Korean studies collections in the Western world. As many of us in
the field know, Korean librarianship in a non-Korean speaking environment poses a
unique set of challenges and questions. This book will answer many of questions on a
wide range of issues, from identifying and acquiring Korean materials to processing and
delivering the information to end-users. The target readership includes not only library
personnel (professional librarians and paraprofessionals who work with Korean
collections on a part or full time basis), but also scholars interested in bibliographic issues
for their Library’s Korean collection or for their own research. A project of the CEAL
(an affiliated group of the Association for Asian Studies), the obvious academic bias in
many areas of its contents was inevitable. However, public and special library personnel
will also find plenty of information applicable to their practices.
A few caveats regarding this volume need to be mentioned. The McCune-Reischauer and
the ALA/LC Romanization Rules have been applied consistently for romanization of
Korean words, but there are some inconsistencies in the use of diacritics and citation
styles because of the many people who contributed to this volume. An online version of
this book is also available at the CEAL home page and will be updated periodically:
<http://staff.washington.edu/rrbritt/ceal/>.
The contributors and the editors sincerely hope that readers will find this book useful, and
are eager to hear comments. Please use the contact information listed in the back of the
book to ask questions, make comments, or send suggestions. The editors, contributors,
and sponsors would like to extend our best wishes on your endeavors for your Korean
collection.
Joy Kim
Chair, Committee on Korean Materials
Council on East Asian Libraries
Association for Asian Studies
January 2002
Acknowledgements
This book is a result of two years of work by many people. I am very grateful to all the
contributors who have devoted much of their energy and countless hours to prepare the materials
on top of their full time jobs. As to the value and extent of their efforts, their works speak for
themselves.
This book would not have been possible without the assistance of many additional people. Since
their contributions are not as apparent as that of the authors, I would like to specifically
acknowledge them here.
Sharon Domier, East Asian Studies Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, most
graciously and cheerfully accepted my invitation to join the team as Copy Editor at a time of
crisis. She not only managed copy editing all the pages of the book within short deadlines, but
also helped to enhance the contents by offering new ideas. Her fresh perspective was invaluable
and her excellent copy editing skills were a lifesaver.
Dr. Kenneth Klein, Head of East Asian Library at the University of Southern California, handled
all the scanning job for reprints. Without warning, I dumped one scanning job after another on his
lap with short deadlines. An ordinary person would have frowned to this injustice, but not my
extraordinary boss. He never lost his customary calm and graciously handed me everything I
needed. More importantly, I am deeply grateful for his moral support throughout the process. He
always made me believe that this was a worthy project, giving me the courage and confidence I
needed to bring the project to completion.
Sunyoon Lee, Korean Studies Librarian at the University of Southern California, was my
technological consultant and problem solver. As long as I have her around, I had no reason to
fear. She always could figure out how to solve technological problems, such as converting files
from one format to another, etc. Her keen eyes and expert knowledge in word processing
provided the final finishing touch on formatting.
In addition to providing materials to be included in the book, Philip Melzer, Team Leader,
Korean/Chinese Cataloging Team at the Library of Congress, and the Korean Catalogers at LC
carefully reviewed the manuscripts and provided valuable input. Thanks to their sharp eyes and
thoughtful advice, errors were corrected and some new materials added. I am most grateful for
their time and effort.
I am grateful to the Rev. Steve Shields of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, and Mr.
Beacher Wiggins of the Library of Congress for their permissions to reprint the articles. Ms Sue
J. Bae, General Manager, Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, and Mr. Kim Sejung of the
National Language Institute of Korea graciously provided prompt assistance in obtaining
materials and permit to reprint them.
Abraham Yu, Chair of the CEAL Committee on Technical Processing, let me use his Committee
members’ work (Taemin Park’s Korean Literary Authors list and Seunghi Paek’s Korean Subject
Headings with Period Subdivisions).
As mentioned in the Introduction, this book was based on the materials prepared for the
Workshop on Korean Librarianship, held in March 2001 at the University of Chicago. Yuan
Zhou, Head of the East Asian Library, made all logistical arrangements for the Workshop with
regard to the facilities and foods. He deserves much credit for the success of the Workshop.
Dr. Jerry D. Campbell, Chief Information Officer and Dean of University Libraries, University
of Southern California, underwrote the expenses of the 2001 Workshop. His moral and financial
support was exemplary to all East Asian Librarians and gave me much encouragement personally.
I am most grateful for his support.
Panmun Book Company, Ltd. gave two grants over the few years to support the activities of the
CEAL Committee on Korean Materials, a major portion of which will be used to publish and
distribute this book.
The editors and contributors are deeply grateful to Asea Munhwasa for publishing this book free
of charge as a donation to the Korean studies field. We are deeply indebted to President
Youngbin Lee for his generous gift and service, and wish to let him know that his donation was
to a good and worthy cause and will have a lasting impact.
Joy Kim