CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 65, July 2009
1. Acquisition of Newspapers
As the official library of Korea, the National Library of Korea (NLK) is responsible for legal deposit and preservation of national knowledge and information resources, collects and preserves comprehensive newspaper materials and provides library services.
Legal Deposit: domestic newspapers
In accordance with the Library Act (based on Article No. 20, Legal Deposit of Materials), two copies of all the newspapers published or produced in Korea must be submitted to the NLK. One of the copies is bound for preservation as the newspaper collection of the NLK, the other is provided for public use. The NLK also reasonably compensates for the value of the submitted materials.
As of June 1, 2009, 1,961 domestic newspapers are collected by legal deposit in two different ways; one is the acquisition by direct submission of newspaper companies and the other is the acquisition through agencies such as Korea Specialized Newspapers Association, local newspaper agency and Korea Magazine Association, and so on.
Subscription: foreign newspapers
The NLK is subscribing for 30 foreign newspapers, mainly focused on representative daily papers of the country, from various countries including Australia, China, France, German, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, UK, and the USA etc. Among the list of subscription, six titles are Japanese which is the largest in number and three titles of the USA are in microfilm form. The NLK also subscribes for two titles North Korean newspapers.
2. Preservation of Newspapers
Binding
One of the two copies of the newspapers collected in the NLK is provided for public use while the other is bound for preservation. All newspapers in Library are bound and especially preservation copies are bound with thread and stored in the Deposit Building for permanent preservation. In the case of 10 major daily newspapers in a great public demand, both of two copies are bound with thread for long term public service and for permanent preservation.
Some of the bound newspapers in the Deposit Building are housed in acid-free box to prevent physical damages. And the newspapers published before 1950, the highly valuable items as rare collections, are specially preserved and maintained in the Deposit Building. The bound newspapers are undergone deacidification process in the preservation office to prevent possible damage.
Producing and Purchasing Microfilms
On the purpose of protection of the original materials and permanent preservation against damages by continued use and acidification of paper, microfilming process is mainly targeted on the newspapers suffering rapid acidification. Major and local daily newspapers published before 1980 have priority over other ones.
13 major domestic newspapers and three American newspapers are purchased in microfilm to provide user services.
Digitization
Since 2002 the NLK has built full text database of newspapers published before 1945. The NLK completed digitization of 31 newspapers into image files including Hwangseong sinmun (1898), Mansebo written in Korean-Chinese language (1908), and local newspaper Goryeo sibo (1933), which are part of the newspaper collections of the NLK. We are planning to extend our full text DB as continuing with digitization of other newspapers.
3. Public Services of Newspapers
The Newspaper Reading Room holds about 5,500 titles including daily newspapers, local newspapers, special newspapers and microfilms. Newspapers are serviced to users in real-time until they are bound. Domestic daily newspapers, sports newspapers and business newspapers published within ten years are open access to public while the others are shelved in the closed stacks and needed a request to read in Library.
In addition, the NLK operates a separate microfilm room in the Newspaper Reading Room, equipped with 10 microform readers and printers for use of all microform materials with staffs in charge of administrating facilities.
As an alternative, microfilm is preferred for user to preserve the original issues. Newspapers available in the NLK are as follows.
| Type | Newspapers | bound newspapers | microfilms | reduced-size and photoprints |
| Items | 5,589 | 5,290 | 116 | 183 |
| Vol./rolls | 76,989vol./rolls | 69,985 vol. | 6,237 rolls | 767 vol. |
The NLK also provides digitalized full text service based on images of 31 newspapers before 1945 on the National Digital Library web site
(http://www.dlibrary.go.kr/WOUMUN/Index.jsp).
Total of 1,064,482 articles of 361 newspapers, newspaper article DB based on images offers a search service by name of the newspaper, title of the article and the date, and so on. The title of article is provided in text files and the article text DB in image files. As we continue to digitalize newspapers, more people will be able to easily access to the extended date for free.
Copyright (C) 2009 National Library of Korea
