The Korea Naval Academy and SNU signed a MoU on November 20th

On November 20th, Seoul National University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Korea Naval Academy. The central part of the agreement between the two institutes rests on the transfer of historic records to the university from the Korea Naval Academy.

With a total count of 4908 books, among them 262 rare texts, the Naval academy collection includes a variety of records that range in topics such as material prior to the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592. The collection also includes texts that were originally published in China and Japan. Researchers expect that the diverse collection of records will help research in Korean studies as well as East Asian studies. The Naval Academy procured the history records during the Korean War, and they have been stored there ever since.

The Korea Naval Academy decided on the collection’s transfer to SNU as it does not have the proper facility and personnel to manage the history texts. Furthermore, limited accessibility to the collection hampered further research. In order to assess the entire collection, SNU’s Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies sent a group of researchers to document and analyze the history records last September, and completed the transfer of the texts to SNU on November 13th.

Meanwhile, the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies is continuing its work on organizing the historic records, and it plans to have a special exhibition on the newly obtained historic records next January.

Written by Yun Hwan Chae, SNU English Editor, yunhwanchae@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Eli Park Sorensen, SNU Professor of Liberal Studies, eps7257@snu.ac.kr