IFLA Conference - Day 2

This was the first "real" day at the conference. I attended some really good sessions, particularly the ones discussing the Google Book Project and all the legal implications that it's creating and the Global Memory Net, a collection of world cultural and heritage multimedia resources that allow users to search and download/view images, sounds, and videos of all types.

We attended the Korean Minister of Tourism's Gala Reception later that night. It was nice; they had a huge buffet and short cultural show. The night ended with live music and disco dancing. I was surprised to see so many librarians dancing. It was pretty funny; there was one guy that looked like an asian Wallace Shawn that got up on the stage and began leading the crowd in dance moves. The moves were more like hand signals than dance moves; kinda like David Byrne's (who I saw in The Strand Bookstore) hand gestures in the "Once in a Lifetime" video, but without the spasms.

I LOVE SEMICOLONS!

IFLA Conference - Day 3

We stayed on the Ewha campus for some IFLA satellite sessions today. Dr. Sam Oh talked about topic mapping again, which I really enjoyed. The presenters right before him discussed the creation and maintanence of an institutional repository; actually, their plan is to create a global repository for many teaching disciplines, including library information science. Interesting ideas, especially when you consider that combining the two; information repositories and topic mapping. A new way of teaching emerges that would allow anyone to view course material for a particular degree path that guides the student through all areas of that discipline. Anyway, I'm still not really clear on all the concepts yet, but it was still interesting.

Later that evening we attended a cultural show at Sejong Center for all the IFLA attendees. It was one of the most impressive live shows that I have ever seen. The program was comprised of 10 traditional music and dancing vignettes that concluded with a drumming presentation of nearly 50 men and women. This last "episode" went on for about 20 minutes and was performed in the most beautufully fluid and graceful way; the rhythms were so complex. It was so inspiring to watch that I didn't want it to end. It also shamed me into becoming more disciplined regarding my own efforts toward creating something. I hope I can look back at this evening and say that this was the moment when it all began for me.

IFLA Conference - Day 1

We all got up early today to attend the IFLA Conference. Everything went extremely smoothly, registration-wise, and we finished in time to attend the opening ceremony where former president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Kim Dae Jung, spoke.

The ceremony was nice; someone spent a lot of money to put this thing together and I suspect that a good majority of it was paid for by the Korean government. Many Korean dignitaries attended the ceremony, which included multimedia presentaitons of music and dance. A song was even written specifically for the conference which contained some not so subtle religious undertones.

I quote:

Who can lead the way to the light
Guiding the world to a brighter day
Who can show the way to our dreams
Helping us to explore the meaning of life

You are a shining light beaming brightly on our path
Connecting people with the insight of great minds the world has known

Lead me on to my journey
In times of need, in times of hunger
Feed my soul, calm my mind
Your smile to show you care for all mankind

You are the Hope
You give us vision of life
You are the Hope
You make the future of this world.

This was an opening ceremony to a librarian conference but it felt like a Christian revival. Interesting.

August 16, 2006 - Jikji Museum and the Miracle Children's Museum

The Jikji Printing Museum is dedicated to providing information about Korea's long history of printing. Unesco has recognized Korea as invented metal movable type printing some 78 years before Gutenberg. Korea claims that this invention led to the literacy explosion around the world, which led to just about every socio-political change over the last 600 years to the internet. This is all well and good, but to claim that one invention was responsible for all this was, to me, a little exagerrated. The Chinese created metal movable type before the Koreans did, they just couldn't figure out a way to keep the tiles stationary during the printing process. They used wooden tiles before they invented metal movable type, so why do the Koreans believe that they invented this out of thin air? A more reasoned acknowledgement might be that the Chinese improved upon stone tablets with movable type, which the Koreans improved upon with metal movable type, which Gutenberg improved upon with his metal movable type press which led to just about every socio-political change over the last 600 years to the internet. Doncha think?

Later we visited the Miracle Children's Museum. The idea for a chidlren's library began when a plea from a Korean television corporation to their viewing audience went out for donations to build 8 children's libraries across Korea. The public responded by promptly raising enough money for all 8 libraries in less than a year. So public money paid for the libraries, but the toen/cities that were awarded libraries are responsible for budgeting the necessary funds to maintain them. I'm all for children learning to read at an early age. The library was nice, the kids were cute; it's just that I'm not that into seeing how a children's library operates.

August 17, 2006 - Sungkyunkwan University

We visited Sungkyunkwan University today and listened to, what I believed to be, the best lecture of the program so far. Dr. Oh spoke about topic mapping, which is a way of representing information using topics. It was really facinating to me. I realized halfway through the lecture that this was the way I learned. A large exent of my body of knowledge was gained through bits of information, like the producer of a particular record, leading to new singers and groups, or interviews or biographies of some of my favorite authors leading me to authors that had influenced their writing.

After the lecture, we had lunch and visited Old Sungkyunkwan and its two 500 year old Ginko Trees. They were beautiful. Later that evening the dean of the Library and Information Science College at the University of Wisconsin arrived in Seoul and we met him at a restaurant and took him to eat shaved ice at "Ice Berry" afterwards.

August 8, 2006 - Seoul National University

Today we visited Seoul National University Library SNUL purchases and has access to more databases than most other Univeristies in the US. However, this is quite expensive becasue they purchase subscriptions seperatetly; unlike universities in the US where licenses or access is purchased in bulk. volume, group licensing.

The digital collection was quite impressive in the volume of available digital items and features that allowed a user to view them. Additionally, copyright and authentication was very robust.

August 7, 2006 - The National Library of Korea

Our group was warmly received at the National Library of Korea and given a brief lecture by Chi-Ju Lee, the National Librarian, that covered the history of the library and the many responsibilities it has in the Korean library system. Among the things that the NLK provides to 515 public libraries and about 10,000 school libraries are operational funds and an automated library system named KOLIS, Korean Library Information System, that they developed and which they provide free to all libraries. They are also building a digital library that will house their entire digital collection ( over 93 million pages) that was recently completed in 2000, 20 years ahead of schedule.

The attention paid to us by the welcoming staff of the NLK was moving; the NLK Chief Executive, Kwon Kyung Sang, even took time out of his busy schedule to meet with us for a short Q&A session. I don't think that anyone in our group had expected to be treated with such warm hospitality and respect.