Tuesday morning I had a tour of the Yonsei University Library. As we walked from the old library to the new, my guide said, “We’re now leaving the 20th century, and entering the 21st.” I thought this was a little dramatic until I saw the space. Turns out, she was telling the literal truth. I felt like I was at Tomorrowland in Epcot Center, except it’s really the Yonsei library.
The new library building (six floors plus a rooftop terrace, 570,000 square feet) opened last May. It was funded largely by Samsung, and the technology is out of this world. Students enter/exit the library by swipping their RFID student ID card. Study areas are divided by function: reading/writing, laptop use, AV, etc., and the design of each area is appropriately differentiated. Every seat in the library is part of an electronic reservation system.
The area by the main entrance is called the U-Lounge, and includes seat reservation terminals and a bank of gigantic shiny touchscreen monitors that serve a variety of purposes. One is an enormous campus map / library floorplan. Others allow you to search the OPAC or read newspapers. There is an electronic bulletin board system with general notices displayed, and if you swipe your ID card, private messages appear (although it’s a huge monitor and anyone could read over your shoulder, so I wouldn’t recommend sending anyone a truly private note this way). There are also a few monitors built into tables (think the old Galaga video games) where students can work collaboratively / play. I’ll be curious to hear usage statistics on this area when I’m back in August – it’s a stunning showpiece, but I wonder about the practicality of having to stand at the monitors, and also about privacy issues.
The Yonsei library is the first in Korea to systematically employ subject specialists. Library science is taught at the undergraduate level, so most librarians don’t come to the field with extensive knowledge in other areas. Yonsei has gone out and hired people in specific fields (law, medicine, the sciences) to work in the library as subject specialists while studying library science. According to my tour guide, this has been a very successful experiment and they hope to see other libraries do the same.
My favorite feature, because it’s so simple and so logical: a laptop lock at each laptop workstation. So if you have to walk away from your station for a moment (say, to use the bathroom) you can leave your laptop without worrying about it disappearing. Brilliant!
For more about the library, check out the website: http://library.yonsei.ac.kr/eng/
And also this dramatic video: http://library.yonsei.ac.kr/eng/aboutLib/pr.asp
More later on my Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday adventures…
Meaghan O’Connor, GSLIS Fellow for Dean’s Initiatives, is spending a week in Seoul to prepare for the 2009 GSLIS travel course to Yonsei University.