• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.22
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• pp.115-155
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• 2009

As Korea was merged into Japan, the official documents during Kabo Reform and The Great Han Empire time were handed over to the Government-General of Chosun and reclassified from section based to ministry based. However they had been reclassified before many times. The footprints of reclassification can be found in the classification stamps and warehouse number stamps which remained on the cover of official documents from Kabo Reform to The Great Han Empire. They classified the documents by Section in the classification system of Ministry-Department-Section, stamped and numbered them. It is consistent with the official document classification system in The Great Han Empire, which shows the section based classification was maintained. Although they stamped by Section and numbered the documents, there were differences in sub classification system by Section. In the documents of Land Tax Section, many institutions can be found. The documents of the same year can be found in different group and documents of similar characteristics are classified in the same group. Customs Section and Other Tax Section seemed to number their documents according to the year of documents. However the year and the order of 'i-ro-ha(イロハ) song' does not match. From Kabo Reform to The Great Han Empire the documents were grouped by Section. However they did not have classification rules for the sub units of Section. Therefore, it is not clear if the document grouping of classification stamps can be understood as the original order of official document classification system of The Great Han Empire. However, given the grouping method reflects the document classification system, the sub section classification system of the Great Han Empire can be inferred through the grouping method. In this inference, it is understood that the classification system was divided into two such as 'Section - Counterpart Institution' and 'Section - Document Issuance Year'. The Government-General of Chosun took over the official documents of The Great Han Empire, stored them in the warehouse and marked them with Warehouse Number Stamps. Warehouse Number Stamp contained the Institution that grouped those documents and the documents were stored by warehouse. Although most of the documents on the shelves in each warehouse were arranged by classification stamp number, some of them were mixed and the order of shelves and that of documents did not match. Although they arranged the documents on the shelves and gave the symbols in the order of 'i-ro-ha(イロハ) song', these symbols were not given by the order of number. During the storage of the documents by the Government-General of Chosun, the classification system according to the classification stamps was affected. One characteristic that can be found in warehouse number stamps is that the preservation period on each document group lost the meaning. The preservation period id decided according to the historical and administrative value. However, the warehouse number stamps did not distinguish the documents according to the preservation period and put the documents with different preservation period on one shelf. As Japan merged Korea, The Great Han Empire did not consider the official documents of the Great Han Empire as administrative documents that should be disposed some time later. It considered them as materials to review the old which is necessary for the colonial governance. As the meaning of the documents has been changed from general administrative documents to the materials that they would need to govern the colony, they dealt with all the official documents of The Great Han Empire as the same object regardless of preservation period. The Government-General of Chosun destroyed the classification system of the Great Han Empire which was based on Section and the functions in the Section by reclassifying them according to Ministry when they reclassified the official documents during Kobo Reform and the Great Han Empire in order to utilize them to govern the colony.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.5
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• pp.179-208
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• 2002

In this paper, I explained the dominating/dominated relationship of Japan and Colonized Korea by analysing the management system of official documents. I examined the theory and practices of the classification used by the office of the Governor-General for preserving official documents whose production and circulation ended. In summary, first, the office of the Governor-General and its municipal authorities classified and filed documents according to the nature and regulations on apportionment for the organizations. The apportionment of the central and local organs was not fixed through the colonial period and changed chronologically. The organization and apportionment of the central and local organs reflected the changes in the colonial policies. As a result, even in the same organs, the composition of documents had differences at different times. The essential way of classifying documents in the colonial period was to sort out official documents which should be preserved serially and successively according to each function of the colonial authorities. The filing of documents was taken place in the form of the direct reflection of organizing and apportioning of the function among several branches of the office of the Governor-General and other governmental organs. However, for the reason that filing documents was guided at the level of the organs, each organ's members responsible for documents hardly composed the filing unit as a sub-category of the organ itself. Second, Japan constructed the infrastructure of colonial rule through the management system of official documents. After Kabo Reform, the management system of official documents had the same principles as those of the Japan proper. The office of the Governor-General not only adopted several regulations on the management of official documents, but also controlled the arrangement and the situation of document managing in the local governmental organizations with the constant censorship. The management system of documents was fundamentally based on the reality of colonial rule and neglected many principles of archival science. For example, the office of Governor-General labelled many policy documents as classified and burnt them only because of the administrative and managerial purposes. Those practices were inherited in the document management system of post-colonial Korea and resulted in scrapping of official documents in large quantities because the system produced too many "classified documents".

• Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.107-135
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• 2002

This study concerns Sama Pangmok which is in the possession of Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University, USA. Sama Pangmok is the archive of Saengwon Chinsa Examination(the licentiate examination) which is the preliminary test for main civil service examination. And it is the list of the names of the applicants who passed this examination. This examination were conducted from the days of lauching of Chosun as a new nation to the days of Kabo Kyungjang(the 1894 reform). While this examination was conducted 230 times, not all but 186 of the resultant lists are available. Of these 186 lists, this library posses 47 titles. My study of the existing dissertation on the possession of titles by Harvard-Yenching Library, 7 titles where in possession of the same library in 1968 and 5 ones in 190. It is the main objective of this study to clarify the possession of this library and correct the past errors in indication of possession of titles by this library. For this purpose, I conducted a study on Saengwon Chinsa Examination and Sama Pangmok, which could be the historical background of this study. This was followed by research on the bibliographical aspect of Sama Pangmok and the research on the situation concerning this Library's possession of the same lists. Lastly, the analysis of the special feature of Sama Pangmok possessed by this Library was conducted. It is expected that the result of this research will be applied to the practical research of the history of civil service examinations and the old and rare books overseas in the future.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.64-87
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• 2020

The cultural property management system of Korea was established based on the modern cultural assets acts and the old imperial estate management system enacted during the Japanese occupation. Academics have researched the cultural property management system oriented on the modern cultural assets acts, but few studies have been conducted into the old imperial estate management system, which is another axis of the cultural property management system. The old imperial estate was separated from the feudal capital by the Kabo Reform, but was dismantled during the colonial invasion of Japan and managed as a hereditary property of the colonial royal family during the Japanese colonial period. After establishment of the government, the Imperial Estate Act was enacted in 1954 and defined the estate as a historical cultural property managed by the Imperial Estate Administration Office. At this time, imperial estate property that was designated as permanent preservation property was officially recognized as constituting state-owned cultural assets and public goods in accordance with Article 2 of the Act's supplementary provisions during 1963, when the first amendment to the Cultural Property Protection act was implemented. In conclusion, Korea's cultural property formation and cultural property management system were integrated into one unit from two different sources: modern cultural assets acts and the old imperial estate property management system. If the change of modern cultural assets acts was the process of regulating and managing cultural property by transplanting and applying regulations from Japan to colonial Joseon, the management of the imperial estate was a process by which the Japanese colonized the Korean Empire and disposed of the imperial estate. Independence and the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea provided the opportunity to combine these two different streams into one. Finally, this integration was completed with the establishment of the Protection of Cultural Properties Act in 1962.