A National Library of Korea (NLK) delegation visited Japan for a week from November 9 to 16, 1997, on the first mutual visit program with the NDL.

Headed by Mr. Kyung-ku Lee, Chief of the Public Service Division of the NLK, the delegation had two other members: Mr. Min-do Ki, Librarian of the Library Automation Office, and Ms. Jae-sun Lee, Librarian of the Support and Cooperation Division (Ms. Chaesun Cho, one of the staff members of the NLK, now studying at the University of Tokyo, also participated as an auditor in some of the seminars).

1. Planning for the program

The NDL has longed for a regular visit program with the NLK to promote interlibrary cooperation, for exceedingly high numbers of Koreans in the library science field, amongst others ones from the NLK, often visit us these days, and in addition, assistance from Korea is indispensable for us to establish an Asian Resource Information Centre in the Kansai-kan (tentative name) which will open in 2002.

With the start of the fiscal year 1997 in April, the NDL began to consider seriously for such a program, when coincidentally, Mr. Gi-young Jeong, Director of the NLK, sent a letter of proposal for the mutual visit program to Mr. Ogata, Librarian of the NDL. The two libraries agreed that participants would be people in practical services, and that we would hold seminars on three common themes, with keynote speeches.

2. Seminars

Seminars were held for four days, which revealed common issues and differences between the two libraries.

(1) Digital libraries and interlibrary networks

Issues concerning digital libraries and networks were often talked over during the seminars, including the keynote speeches of both libraries. The NLK reported that it has already digitized about 200 items, but they were restricted to special cases such as old official gazettes, rare and old materials, classical literature and some academic magazines because of the copyright issues that bar most of the doctoral dissertations, which are the most frequently used materials, from being digitized.

The NDL reported its efforts on the digital library project and the importance of making a social agreement by cooperating with authors, publishers and related institutions.

The NLK acts as a leader in a Korean national project on digital network, which will soon be open to the public on the Internet. They asked questions about the NDL's relationships with other institutions such as NACSIS (National Center for Science Information Systems) and JST (Japan Science and Technology Corporation). We answered that we were going to promote the project in loose coordination with them.

(2) Theme 1: Legal deposit system

This subject revealed wide differences between systems in both countries. The Korean legal deposit system began in 1965. In the case of general books, publishers are supposed to deposit eight volumes to four governmental agencies: while in Japan only one copy has to be deposited. Legalization of the digital publications deposit system is a big issue in Korea, as well as in Japan.

Questions and answers over copyright protection and the deposit system, the meaning of recompense and so on were very intriguing, showing our differences clearly.

(3) Theme 2: MARC

KORMARC which is produced by the NLK was settled as the Korean standard (KS) of bibliographical information in 1993. Now it is used in 99% of public libraries, 92% of university libraries and 74% of special libraries. It is also open to the public through the public telecommunication network and PC communication network, and will soon become available on the Internet free of charge.

The NLK delegation questioned the coexistence of JAPAN/MARC and commercial MARCs in Japan. They think a national library should compile the only one MARC in the country. We explained the publications distribution system in Japan, the differences between JAPAN/MARC and commercial MARC, and the usefulness of worksharing.

The delegation also insisted that in principal, databases which are produced at the taxpayers' expense should be free of charge. We explained that there was a law in Japan that says in principal national property must be paid for when used and that it was a crucial issue to be overcome.

The Korean delegates contributed a valuable proposal to cooperate in studying letter cords and MARCs to make Korean and Japanese databases available in both countries, responding to the surging mutual interest and the increasing number of materials on the other country.

(4) Theme 3: User services

The NLK differs from the NDL in user services in many aspects.

When the NLK moved to the new building in 1988, it took the occasion to change its user services drastically, based on the idea that a series of library activities, such as acquisition, organization of materials and preservation, should exist for readers, and also to save the narrow stack space. It abolished all the existing large reading rooms such as the reference books room and the periodicals room, and reorganized them into twenty special materials rooms, according to subjects and materials. It offers on open shelves all the general books after 1980, Korean periodicals of the past two years, and Korean daily newspapers of the past ten years. In 1996, the Information Service Room opened for CD-ROM and Internet services. "Video on demand" system is also available.

One of the two deposited materials which are meant to be preserved can be used when there are plural calls for one material. Photoduplication service is dealt with in each materials room, rather than in specially located places as in the NDL, and readers can also make copies themselves, which reduces waiting time, but on the other hand causes preservation and copyright problems.

The NLK is open about 327 days of the year, including Saturdays and Sundays, and closed on the second and the fourth Mondays. No national library in the world has more opening days and hours than it does, which loads staff members with excessive work, they said. It aims to change into a national reference library in the future, departing from its present character of a public library.

3. Conclusion

Lively discussion, and questions and answers in the seminars were very intriguing and greatly added to mutual understanding. The delegation visited the Asian Materials Division and other sections of the NDL. They also showed us how to operate KORMARC.

Owing to the attractive personality of each member of the delegation, in just a few days we had got to know each other as though we had been acquaintances for ten years. Mr. Lee was an expert librarian who made firm discussion, while sometimes making the whole audience roar with laughter with his great sense of humor. Mr. Ki's logic was precise, as you would expect of a specialist in computer and MARC. He kept on asking questions eagerly until he got convinced. Many of Ms. Lee's questions were so acute that it was often hard for us to answer. Her Japanese acquired in a Japan Foundation program was a lot of help to us.

Despite the tight schedule, the delegation filled in visits to NACSIS, Waseda University Library and Urayasu Municipal Library. We appreciate the kindness extended by these institutions.

To exchange and share MARC between both libraries is critical, as Mr. Ki pointed out in his paper. One of the NDL participants reviewed the program and said that both libraries had common roles as national libraries even if the ways to achieve them were different from each other.

The second mutual visit program is planned to be held this autumn, with an NDL delegation visiting Korea this time.