By Han Sang-hee
The number of books in the 20 largest university libraries in Korea falls far short of those lining the shelves in American schools, according to a report Tuesday.
A report by the Korea Education & Research Information Service showed that the average number of books in the top 20 universities, including Seoul National University (SNU), was 1.9 million, less than half those available at U.S. schools registered under the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), which is around 4.4 million.
``One of the most important roles of a university library is to secure a decent number of high-quality books. The inventory at such libraries is increasing every year, but it is still very low compared to those of university libraries under the ARL,” the report said. “This shows that schools must devote more time and effort to secure necessary reading materials in the future.’’
The ARL is an organization of the leading research libraries in North America, with over 120 members in the U.S. and Canada. The comparative research was done on 412 local and 113 North American university libraries.
The SNU library, considered among the largest in the country, houses some 4 million books, much less than the average figure of ARL schools. It’s similar to that of the University of Southern California, which ranked 39 on the association’s list with 4 million.
``The main problem would be the lack of budget. The budget for books tends to be pushed back. The fundamental key for advancing education and research is in books, but current conditions are pretty poor,’’ said Kim Chong-suh, director general of SNU library.
According to Kim, not many people or organizations, even the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, puts great importance on university libraries, which has resulted in such depressing statistics.
``It’s a simple problem. The world is a scholastic battlefield but while students from North American universities are fighting with a machine gun, local students are fighting with a rifle. How can Korean students compete in this environment?’’ Kim said.
Kyungpook National University library ranked second with 2.7 million, similar to the University of New Mexico which took 90th place on the ARL’s list with 2.7 million.
The university with the most books was Harvard University with 16.2 million, while the lowest two were the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Guelph with 2 million and 1.8 million respectively, both in Canada.
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