Seoul Metropolitan Library will publish a map showing the locations of 470 bookstores in Seoul, the city-run library said Monday.
Around 20,000 copies of the map will be printed and distributed to local bookstores, secondhand bookstores and regional district offices.
The map comes as a convenient tool to look up bookstores around the neighborhood of residence as it had been difficult to locate small local bookstores. The library offers a search service on their website but it was difficult to see all the libraries at one glance.
The map is quite large: 87.5 cm in width and 62 cm in length. On one page, the map shows 380 large and small bookstores, and 90 secondhand bookstores. On the other side, the map has the name and address of each bookstore so users can look them up when needed.
"We decided to publish the map because not many people know that there are this many bookstores in the city. We're also planning a bookstore searching event," said a library official. "We designed the map so that it will be worth possessing and people won't throw it away after using it once."
The map will be pre-distributed during the Seoul Book Festival held by the library Sept. 2 to 4 and officially distributed starting mid-September.
The library plans to create another map containing information on libraries located in Seoul.