No. 133, October 2003

The 7th Mutual Visit Program between
the National Diet Library and
the National Library of Korea

Session II: (Subject: Digital Library Construction)

Constructing Databases of Library Holdings and Sharing them with Other Institutions

by Ms. Lee Sun
Deputy Chief, Library Automation Office
National Library of Korea

1. Library Information Promotion Project: background and current status
<Background>
According to the Comprehensive Library Information Plan, the first stage of the project was conducted from 2000 to 2002 at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) and the NLK. The MCT was in charge of physical infrastructure, and the NLK was in charge of application development and digitization.

<Current status>
For the first stage, the MCT established digital libraries in 144 public libraries in 2001. The central government and local governments bore the expense equally. For the second stage, an additional 200 digital libraries will be established at the same time as the system improvement in FY2003. In the first stage, it was difficult for local governments in agricultural and fishing areas to bear the expenses of digital libraries; the portion they bear will be rearranged.

There is another plan to construct a mobile library system as a model project that will provide library information and searches for library holdings using radio frequency identification (RFID) and mobile phones.

2. Expansion and utilization of digitized materials: focusing on image databases

<Bibliographic database>
(1) Union catalog database
Since 1997, the NLK is promoting the construction of a union catalog database that covers the holdings of the NLK, public libraries and libraries in government offices. As of December 2002, 3 million bibliographic data and 10.9 million items of holding information are provided through the Korean Library Information System Network (KOLIS-NET). 255 out of 430 public libraries are in this network. In 2003, data can be uploaded in real time. In future, the bibliographic data will be connected to the table of contents database.

(2) Table of contents database
The NLK provides a table of contents database that covers 910,000 items including 360,000 books, 80,000 materials published before 1945, 100,000 books in Western languages, 20,000 Japanese books, and 350,000 serials via the NLK website (http://www.nl.go.kr) and the National Digital Library website (http://www.dlibrary.go.kr). In 2003, the table of contents will be downloadable and linkable to a local library's bibliographic records.

(3) Holding information of volume of periodicals database and periodicals index database
The NLK provides periodicals' holding information through its website and the KOLIS-NET. In 2003, it will select periodicals with academic value and construct an index and abstract database.

<Image database>
(1) Selection of materials and the database construction committee
Valuable to be preserved and frequently used materials were selected. Materials whose copyrights had expired were digitized as a priority. To correct any regional digital divide, rather new books, published before 1996, were also digitized. Selection is coordinated among National Digital Library member libraries to avoid duplication and overlapping.

The NLK established the National Library of Korea Database Construction Committee consisting of outside experts to consult on issues related to database construction.

Databases of the NLK: total 2,700,00 volumes/74,641,542 pages (as of December 2002)

• Rare books
• Official gazettes
• Books published before 1997
• Ministry of Culture and Tourism publications
• Newspapers published before 1945
• Rare serials
• Doctoral dissertations on humanities
• One hundred Korean classics
• Classic novels in hangul
• Japanese materials published before 1945
• Foreign materials on Korea

In these databases, tables of contents are provided in text format and body texts are provided in image format.

(2) Commercial databases 
The NLK purchases the commercial databases below:

• Academic journals index: articles index and full-text of 1,400 titles domestic academic journals. 280,000 items included.
• Korean studies and other information resources database: 2,957 titles of domestic and foreign journals.
• E-book: 2,565 titles of books such as cultural and educational books

(3) Provision of image databases and copyright
Image databases are provided via the National Digital Library website and the NLK website. In the National Digital Library website, data on 146,000 volumes are provided.

As a result of the revision of the Copyright Law of South Korea in May 2003, when a library makes a copy of a material of other library's holding or transmits it electrically, a royalty must be paid to the copyright holder. The NLK is preparing detailed procedures in line with the revised law.

<Database for visually handicapped>
Voice service of the union catalog database and table of contents database has been available since 2002 on the National Digital Library website. From 2003, digitized basic study books for visually handicapped college students are available in voice and Braille.

3. Sharing of databases among domestic libraries

<National Digital Library> 
The National Digital Library is a national project intended to connect domestic major libraries and ensure circulation of information resources to enable cross searching of various databases of the member libraries. Member libraries are:

• NLK
• National Assembly Library
• Supreme Court Library
• Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI)
• Korea Education & Research Information Service (KERIS)
• Digital Science Library of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
• Korea Agricultural Science Digital Library

This project has been conducted in four phases since 1996 in accordance with the Information Superhighway Construction Plan. Users can access databases free of charge as far as the Copyright Law permits.

<Sharing of databases>
Prior to the National Digital Library Construction Project, the NLK and six member libraries had formed a framework for constructing and sharing of databases. In 2001, the NLK and the KERIS concluded a mutual cooperation arrangement focusing on sharing of academic information. In March 2003, the NLK and the NAL concluded an arrangement that includes not only exchange of materials but also sharing of resources and information on databases, copyright issues, and library holdings. Now the NLK is using data provided by the NAL to construct the periodicals index and abstract database.

To standardize cataloging and efficiently manage library holdings, public libraries are utilizing the KOLIS-NET; they upload their own bibliographic records and download data from it.

4. Future challenges

Now the NLK's image databases are constructed in TIFF and JPEG formats. Because these formats require a large amount of data and may cause problems in data transfer, the NLK is planning to adopt the XML format that has recently been recognized as an international standard.

Future challenges in database construction are the following:

1. Image databases will be linked with text databases to enable more efficient search.
2. A KS code-Unicode converter is being developed to enable international bibliographic exchange.
3. An integrated viewer is being developed to enable search for multimedia materials.
4. An adequate data format will be adopted to construct and provide large-volume databases such as rare books image database efficiently.

Standardization in database construction, application, and character encoding is another challenge to exchange and share data among libraries.

5. Digital dilemma

The NLK spent a large amount of money to develop the information infrastructure described above, but the materials that most users need are not rare books or old books but current information. Though it will continue constructing image databases of rare books and other historical materials to preserve the national heritage, it will make efforts to satisfy users' demands. It is also responsible for protecting copyright holders' rights. This "digital dilemma" is a common problem among many libraries to be solved.