Abstract
Korean academic libraries are facing a serious space shortage problem due to the inability to uphold the rapidly increasing amount of printed materials despite having expanded the number of physical facilities. Data computerization has been considered as a solution to the issue, but deliberation for the High Density Book Storage System has been on the rise because of its impressive method of preserving printed materials in a realistic facility. Despite the different methods of print material storage, Korean academic libraries have largely focused on investing in the least efficient method of compact shelving to solve this issue. It is hypothesized that the misuse of funds on inefficient systems is occurring due to the lack of knowledge about the high-density book storage systems like the Harvard model. In order to propose a realistic solution to the academic library space shortage crisis on a logical basis, it is imperative that a study of academic librarians is conducted to investigate their knowledge on such efficient storage systems.
Highlights
Korea’s rapid economic grown in the 1980s brought enormous spatial expansion to the physical facilities associated with academic libraries
In the 90’s, Harvard began its construction of high density book storages, the “Harvard Model”, as an efficient method of preserving low use print materials to serve as the solution for the space shortage problems in academic libraries
The fact that Korean academic librarians have such limited knowledge about high-density book storages systems like the Harvard model, which has already become a standard in the United States and Europe, shows the librarians’ lack of understanding is even far more limited than as previously predicted
Summary
Korea’s rapid economic grown in the 1980s brought enormous spatial expansion to the physical facilities associated with academic libraries. The total of amount of books had expanded by 9370%, and that increase was almost 8 times faster than the growth of academic library facilities. This exponential growth created a serious space shortage problem for all Korean academic libraries and slowly led to academic environment degradation. The vastly increasing quantities of printed materials and the library space shortages brought about by it are the biggest problems facing current academic libraries in Korea. Judging by the cost-benefit tradeoff, the closed access high-density book storage system is the only logical option to resolve the academic libraries’ space shortage crisis [2]. The analysis of the survey responses will serve as a method to further resolve the space shortage crisis in a workable fashion
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