(13 Jan 2023) R. David Lankes, the Virginia & Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship at the iSchool at University of Texas at Austin, shares his observation of visiting local libraries in South Korea.
“…As part of my trip to Korea, I had the pleasure of visiting a host of innovative community libraries there. And what I found was that these communities have built the very libraries that I have been advocating for: community centered, empowering, progressive.
Take, for example, the Gusan-dong Village Library, which was created by the social action of citizens. Community members (many of them single mothers) petitioned their local government to create this library. The citizens of the area then created their own library school to plan the library through meetings, lectures from invited speakers, shared readings. The library itself was constructed from existing buildings no taller and no grander than the apartments around them, with the footprints of the original homes preserved but now offering everything from self-published works to collective governance…”
The story in full is here.
