• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.25-43
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• 2013

South Korea has fewer public libraries than other developed nations of OECD. This calls for a more diverse role of school libraries in the geographically isolated areas. School libraries should provides services for not only its students and faculty, but also the surrounding neighborhood as a part of cultural community. Based on the needs for an expanded role of school libraries, this research aims to identify the necessary factors for school libraries to provide services to their local residents. Two things should be identified for this research. First, we should confirm the necessity of policies that provide library services to local residents of school libraries. Second, we should propose a way to have the libraries as a part of cultural community where meet the information and cultural demand of their local residents. The study surveyed users, school principals and working-level staff members of cultural communities in order to study the two questions. These groups were from Uri-school Village Library, which is supported by the NHN Culture Foundation. Through the survey, the research confirmed the need for a consistent outside assistance, job training, open door policy for local residents and diverse library services in order for school libraries to serve their local community.