• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.265-281
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• 2013

The early history of foreign Protestant missionaries in Korea has begun in the late 19th century, when they came to work as professionals such as teachers, medical doctors, etc. as the nation opened its door to western culture with the fall of national isolationism. Their records are considered crucial resources that enable us to shed new light on modern Korean history, politics, economy and society beyond mere religious value. Despite the recognition of such historic value of early missionary resources, however, there has been serious lacking of a systematic attempt to develop policies and plans for making it easy to collect, preserve and access the resources. Up to date, the records of early Protestant missionaries, in diverse forms of mission reports, books, periodicals, personal diaries, letters and photos, are scattered around various places, including their home country churches, governments, libraries, museums, research institutes and homes. Therefore, this research aims at providing basic resources on the archival status of early Protestant missionaries in Korea, needed for developing a sustainable and systematic digital archive system, through the investigation of early foreign missionaries' resources and in-depth interviews of experts. The study covers the period of 1800s to 1910, that is from the beginning of Protestant missionaries entering into Korea until the start of the Japanese annexation in 1910.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.233-252
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• 2018

The first Protestant medical missionary, Horace Allen, came to Korea in 1884 and built the first western-style hospital, Jaejungwon. John Heron, Oliver Avison and other foreign medical doctors soon followed. They established hospitals and medical schools, and, by treating patients and educating native doctors, they disseminated and developed modern medicine in Korea. At the same time, they wrote letters and reports to their sponsoring agencies, as well as family and friends, thereby leaving a vast body of literature that is scattered all over the world. Since the end of the 19th century, the records left by foreign medical missionaries have been valuable resources for the study of Korean history. While all types of records, such as diaries, memoirs, reports and travel logs, are available, these tend to be exaggerated or unverifiable because they are unilateral records. In contrast, letters can be verified because they are bilateral records between the recipient and the sender, and cannot be modified or altered according to changes in circumstances. Despite the academic value of these materials, however, there have been insufficient efforts to discover or identify these primary data sources, or to systematically organize them for scholars. This paper identified 49 archival collections from 29 institutions in North America. After analyzing their academic value, the paper will explore digital humanities options in utilizing the letters for future scholarship.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.46
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• pp.95-152
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• 2015

"Archives of Everyday Life" refers to an organization or facility which collects, appraises, selects and preserves the document from the memory of individuals, groups, or a society through categorizing and classifying lives and cultures of ordinary people. The document includes materials such as diaries, autobiography, letters, and notes. It also covers any digital files or hypertext like posts from blogs and online communities, or photos uploaded on Social Network Services. Many research fields including the Records Management Studies has continuously claimed the necessity of collection and preservation of ordinary people's records on daily life produced every moment. Especially diary is a written record reflecting the facts experienced by an individual and his self-examination. Its originality, individuality and uniqueness are considered truly valuable as a document regardless of the era. Lately many diaries have been discovered and presented to the historical research communities, and diverse researchers in human and social studies have embarked more in-depth research on diaries, their authors, and social background of the time. Furthermore, researchers from linguistics, educational studies, and psychology analyze linguistic behaviors, status of cultural assimilation, and emotional or psychological changes of an author. In this study, we are conducting a metastudy from various research on diaries in order to reaffirm the value of "The 12th May Diaries Collection" as everyday life archives. "The 12th May Diaries Collection" consists of diaries produced and donated directly by citizens on the 12th May every year. It was only 2013 when Digital Archiving Institute in Univ. of Myungji organized the first "Annual call for the 12th May". Now more than 2,000 items were collected including hand writing diaries, digital documents, photos, audio and video files, etc. The age of participants also varies from children to senior citizens. In this study, quantitative analysis will be made on the diaries collected as well as more profound discoveries on the detailed contents of each item. It is not difficult to see stories about family and friends, school life, concerns over career path, daily life and feelings of citizens ranging all different generations, regions, and professions. Based on keyword and descriptors of each item, more comprehensive examination will be further made. Additionally this study will also provide suggestions to examine future research opportunities of these diaries for different fields such as linguistics, educational studies, historical studies or humanities considering diverse formats and contents of diaries. Finally this study will also discuss necessary tasks and challenges for "the 12th May Diaries Collection" to be continuously collected and preserved as Everyday Life Archives.