A photograph from October 1966, when former President Park Chung-hee visited Kyujanggak
with his wife Yuk Young-soo. Librarian Paik is at the far left.
Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies is well-known as the repository of Korean cultural heritage. Located in Seoul National University's Gwanak campus, Kyujanggak safely stores more than 240,000 ancient documents, including national treasures and documents enlisted in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. However, not many people are aware that such resources have been able to survive the test of time due to the efforts of one librarian, PAIK Lin, who worked at Kyujanggak in the 1950s-1960s. Librarian Paik, who passed away at age 92 on September 30, 2015 in Boston, was the most important figure in storing ancient documents in the early history of SNU.
Kyujanggak building at SNU Gwanak campus
Paik first became affiliated with Kyujanggak in 1948, when he was appointed as a librarian at Seoul National University Library. At the onset of the Korean War in 1950, Paik played a major role in safely relocating Kyujanggak's ancient books to Busan. When the North Korean Army captured Seoul and demanded a list of books to be sent to the North, Paik was able to safeguard all the collection of books. In December 1950, Paik carefully packed 10,000 important national documents on a freight train headed for Busan. Later Paik recalled,"While we were loading the books onto the freight train, the Minister of Education PAIK Nak-joon saw that the books were not properly packaged and scolded us, 'Are you aware of the value of the 500-year Joseon Dynasty history?' … In Busan, I slept on top of the crate of books for half a year lest any book go missing."
After the Korean War Armistice, Paik returned to Seoul to reorganize the disheveled pile of SNU Library books that had been pulled out of their shelves by the North Korean army. At the time, other librarians predicted that it would take years to organize all 600,000 books, but Paik was able to complete the process in less than half a year."I was able to finish so quickly because of my previous experience of organizing 20,000 books for a year and a half while staying in Busan [during the Korean War]," explained Paik. The Director of Yonsei University Library, who visited SNU back then, described Paik as a"miner digging up one book after another amidst the dust and heaps of fragile documents that had piled up to the ceiling."
In 1965, Paik discovered a document of the Japanese Government General of Korea proving that Ito Hirobumi had sent 1028 ancient Korean books to Japan during Japanese colonialism. Due to the document, the Korean government was able to reclaim most of the ancient book from Japan.
While working as a librarian, Paik also earned a master's degree from Yonsei University Department of Library and Information Science and gave lectures at a number of universities. To younger librarians, he advised that"librarians should be able to not only organize books, but also understand the content of the books." Further, Paik emphasized that the ancient documents kept in Kyujanggak are not merely books, but the home of Korean history.
In 1973, Paik was offered a position at Harvard University's Yenching Library. There he took charge of organizing and computerizing Koreanology resources, enabling Yenching Library to become the top Koreanology library in the U.S. Outside the library, Paik served as the principal and history teacher in the Korean School of New England for eight years, and as the President of Boston Korean-American Senior Citizens' Association for six years.
From his retirement in 1991, Paik lived the rest of his life in Boston. LEE Jaewon, a librarian currently working at the SNU Library expressed,"I hope there would be more librarians who dedicate their lives to books just as Mr. Paik."
This article referenced: http://www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2015110974501
Written by YOON Jiwon, SNU English Editor, jiwonyoon@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Eli Park Sorensen, SNU Professor of Liberal Studies, eps7257@snu.ac.kr