• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.399-419
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• 2013

This paper conducted the empirical analysis of the behaviors revealed in the eight size distributions of the public libraries in Korea. As a result, the behaviors of complex system appeared in all eight size factors. This means that the sizes of public libraries in Korea were highly polarized. Especially, the zipf's law were found in the size factors such as gross area, number of staffs, volume of books, total budget. And the highly uneven distributions were occurred in the size factors such as membership, number of users, number of borrowers, number of borrowed books. This research outcomes show that a new policy of public libraries is needed to resolve the polarization revealed in the sizes of public libraries in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.79-102
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• 2021

This research is based on open data from the National Library Statistics System and Seoul Survey 2020 from Seoul to analyze the Seoul citizens' usage of public libraries. For such purposes, this research compared and diagnosed the condition of public libraries services at 25 districts of Seoul, focusing on objective indicators of library management and general usage records to understand the correlations between the two. Objective indicators such as budgets, human labor, the number of books, and total ground area were compared with usage records of different classes of Seoul citizens, organized by the citizens' place of living, educational background, and monthly household income. As a result of the research, the correlation between the objective indicators and public usage records of different classes was confirmed. Seoul citizens' usage of public libraries and reading tendency were identified. In addition to, a balanced development of the public libraries in Seoul was proposed to overcome regional disparities and leveling the service level by investigating usage behavior and reading tendency of the public libraries in Seoul.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.301-315
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• 2011

DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis) is useful to measure the relative efficiency of organizational units where the presence of multiple inputs and outputs. This study applied DEA-CCR and DEA-BCC to evaluate the technical, pure technical, and scale efficiency of 29 university libraries. The input variables were number of books, print edition expenses, building space, staff, number of seats. As output variables we estimated: reader visits, number of borrowed items, number of visitors. It was found out that number of libraries with 100% relative efficiency among 29 libraries were 13. Also the results shows that main reason of inefficiency was from scale rather than from pure technical. Many inefficient libraries were operations of increasing return to scale.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.45-68
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to longitudinally analyze impact factors on library use. One of library use indicators, the number of circulated books was statistically analyzed with latent growth model and growth mixture model. Library data from 2014 to 2019 were collected from the National Library Statistics System, and 846 public libraries were analyzed. As results, the number of circulated books were decreased, but it was tempered. Next, with controlling the factor affecting the dependent variable, the size of collection and the number of participants in reading programs provided by public libraries were statistically significant. Lastly, 5 classes were identified by applying the growth mixture model, and the number of librarians was significantly associated with trajectory class membership.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.5-25
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• 2010

This study attempts to compare Jeonju Municipal Library(JML) and RCPL(Richland County Public Library). It was expected that the comparison would give public librarians some suggestions as to their libraries' strengths and weaknesses. JML has shown some weaknesses compared to RCPL, specially, in the quality and quantity sections of resources, budgets, areas of library, public relations, circulations, reading club enrollment are strengths of RCPL, compared to JML. However, JML has the strength in the participation of a lot of volunteers and visitors to the library. JML should extend and publicize the high service quality as the citizens' library.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.253-274
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• 2009

Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) model is a linear programing based technique for measuring the relative performance of organizational units where the presence of multiple inputs and outputs makes comparison difficult. DEA model allows each unit to adopt a set of weight that shows it in the most favorable light in comparison to the other units. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of the libraries of national university in terms of relative efficiency, measured by the method of DEA. Twenty six libraries of national universities in Korea were used to analyze. The number of employees, size of library, budget, and number of books were used for input data, and the number of visitors, number of loan books, and number of books for lending and borrowing were used for output data. We found out that number of libraries with 100% relative efficiency among 26 libraries from 2005 to 2007 were only 9, 9 and 10, respectively. Moreover most of the libraries need to increase outputs and decrease inputs in order to improve efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.193-212
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to explain the necessity of secure budget in public libraries with regard to promoting library usage. It is namely to attempt to find out if there really is a connection between library funding and library usage. For this purpose, the relevant data of all the 31 public libraries in Busan were collected from the 2013 National library Statistics of Korea. To determine the connection between library funding and usage, two variables were selected, 'TFI (Total Funding Indicator) = $\sqrt{personnelcosts{\times}materialcosts}$' for independent variable and 'LU (Library Usage) = (visits per year) + (loans per year)/number of inhabitants' for dependent variable. The results showed that there is a clear relationship between TFI and LU and If more cost is spent on personal resources and material resources, the total usage of the public library also increase. The findings are limited due to the fact that the observation was focusing on public libraries in one community and the period of observation was one year in 2013.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.57-80
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• 2009

The numbers of population, areas, possessions, employees, operational budget, users, and circulated books in Korea Library Yearbook were collected for the purpose of analyzing the status of information disparity through libraries among four large regional groups in Korea in this paper. They were the main indicators of four types of libraries such as public, academic, special, and school ones. The collected data were classified into four regional groups, and were analyzed by using the comparisons of means such as t-test and ANOVA, and correlation coefficient if there is any significant differences among them or not.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.5-25
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• 2022

In most countries, public libraries are knowledge information centers, complex cultural spaces, lifelong learning facilities, and third places for local residents. The social homage spoken on the premise of this identity and socio-cultural role is the knowledge and information agora, cultural infrastructure, living room in the city, and the university of the people. However, if there is a significant gap between public libraries regardless of country or region, it will inevitably lead to information gaps, regional gaps, and cultural inequality and cultural welfare gaps among local residents. This study is regarded as the essence of regional cultural facilities and premised that the regional gap in public libraries is a factor of regional cultural gaps. Based on this premise, the gap between the location quotient, input indicators, and output indicators of public libraries of regional governments in Korea and basic local governments in the Gyeongbuk region was analyzed. And this study derived core elements through correlation and regression analysis of input and output indicators of all public libraries nationwide, developed a management model for each indicator, and suggested a plan to resolve the relative gap for public libraries by city and county in Gyeongbuk.