Home > Research > Library System
- The history of Sungkyunkwan University's libraries is as long and complicated as that of the University itself. The first library, named jon'gyeong'gak, was built in 1475 under the reign of King Seongjong, who contributed 10,000 books. Even though wars and fires destroyed the library several times throughout the Joseon period (1392-1910), the library grew to house almost 100,000 volumes on Confucian studies alone.
- Over time, many volumes were added to the small number of books that remained in Joni'gyeong'gak, and the library holdings soon grew to 70,000 volumes. Unfortunately, the library building and the books were completely
destroyed during the Korean War
(1950-1953). The Sungkyunkwan University library system currently encompasses the Central Library, the Science Library, the Library of Medicine, the Audio-visual Library, and library of
research institutes established by the University. As of late 2004 their collections included 1,510,000 volumes of books and periodicals and 37,689 non-book materials, such as slided, cassette tapes, compact disks, video records, and microfiches.
The majority of the Central Library's holdings are in the field of humanities and social sciences. The Library especially takes pride in its special collection of rare Korean books. The Science Library was opened on the Natural Sciences Campus in 1979 and moved into a new building in 1983. Now we opened new Samsung Library with 10 stories with a modern design of Gingko leaves, landmark architecture in the Natural Sciences Campus. Its current holdings are 560,000 volumes in the fields of science and technology.
The library systems were computerized in 1994, providing the capability to search and access various library listings by CDROM and the internet. The SIMSAN, as the integrated library
system, gives its users easy access to the entire modern book collection of University libraries. On top of all, the computerized version of the Jon¡¯gyeong¡¯gak provides users with full text images
from the old rare book collection of the library via the University's local area network. The University is striving to digitalize the libraries to provide better service to all students and faculty members.
