Digital Services of the National Library of Korea: Current State and Tasks

Abstract

The National Library (NL) of Korea holds about 16.3 million digital information materials. Since 2016, the NL has been receiving legal deposit copies of e-books, digital copies of publications, magazines and newspapers. The article analyses digital services of the NL of Korea and identifies the main problems in this area.The NL of Korea is the main library of the country, actively developing the inter-library relations, cooperating with libraries of the Republic of Korea and around the world. It developed the Reference service “Ask a Librarian”, created the Catalogue of digital books, the System “Free Access to Korea” and offers the services on providing information in alternative forms for people with disabilities. The NL designed the automated library system and implemented it in 1094 library. The NL of Korea started the work on creation of the China-Japan-Korea Digital Library Portal. There is a number of problems: acquisition of electronic legal deposit copies, lack of the content for some projects, lack of information services, optimized for the users requirements. The purpose of this study: professional dialogue in the world library community for the exchange of experience, knowledge information resources and for sharing of library content. The article presents the Three-year digital service plan. The author describes the goals and objectives of the NL of Korea: the expansion of the library holdings in the digital environment, the improvement of operation of digital resources, the activation of mobile services and popularization of humanities knowledge through digitization.The principle of operation of all Korean libraries is changing from data collecting and information storage to implementation of information. The author concludes that libraries should quickly respond to the information technology changes. Nowadays, there increases the importance of collecting and storing of all information resources of the national value.