Studies on Computerization of the Korean Libraries

한국 도서관의 컴퓨터 기술 도입에 관한 연구

1. Introduction Korean society is moving toward an information society in 2000. At present a few Korean libraries are computerized and networks between libraries have yet to be formed. And there is no study done on the computerization of the Korean libraries. Therefore, this study will attempt to find elements that influence the computerization of Korean libraries. This research is composed of the following three parts. 1) Survey on the present status of computerized Korean libraries. 2) The influencing factors for Korean library computerization on the level of organization. 3) The relationship between professionalism and the access to the computer information on the level of librarians. 2. Hypothesis The basic hypothesis of this research is from the theory of the innovation of organization by Moch. He found that the size of the organization, specialization of the staffs, the task differentiation, and decentralization of decision making were the underlying influence for the organizational innovation. From this theory, hypothesis were formulated as follows. 1) The size of the library influences the library computerization. 2) Specialization of the librarians influences the library computerization. 3) Differentiation of the library services influences the library computerization. 4) The decision making process influences the library computerization. 3. Collection of the data Questionnaires were sent to 21 computerized libraries among which were 8 experimental group and 7 other controlled group libraries. Data were collected from April to July 1988. 4. Findings 1) The present status of Korean library computerization. -Korean libraries are computerized mostly in cataloguing. -The computer technology gate-keepers are mainly librarians. -The computerization budgets are not specifically allocated or funded by the organization but librarians made decisions to allocate library budget for the computer application. Gradually, more libraries are being funded specially for library computerization. 2) Factors that influence library computerization. -The size of the western books and the number of western periodical subscription influence the library computerization. -The number of annual book increase influences library computerization. -The number of annual book use influences library computerization. -The number of annual library users does not influences library computerization. - The size of the library budget influences the library computerization. -Librarian's specialization influences the library computerization. -Differentiation of library service influences the library computerization. Information service is positively related to the library computerization while data service is not related to the library computerization. -Decentralization of decision making in library service influences the library computerization.