Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Fall 10-22-2022
Abstract
The growth of online resources on Korean Studies (KS) has increased over past several years. They cover almost all facets of the discipline ranging from Korean Art to Korean Sociology. Majority of these resources offer free and unrestricted access and are managed by various institutions and individuals.
The demand for KS has increased as a fast-growing discipline in South Asia. There are number of institutions in the region which offer various academic programs related to KS, especially on Korean language and culture studies. However, despite of little collections, majority of libraries and resource centers in these institutions do not have sufficient and updated resources which are necessary to meet the information needs of KS students and teachers. Institutions in Sri Lanka also have no exception in this regard.
The above mentioned freely available online resources can fill this void by meeting the information needs of KS students in Sri Lanka to a greater extent. However, most of the students are not fully aware of the availability of these resources. Also, they lack necessary skills and encounter language barriers in selecting authoritative online resources. As a result, the valuable yet free resources are under-utilized.
Objective of creating a ‘Subject Gateway’ is to assist Sri Lankan students to find relevant and authoritative online resources, related to KS, through their local languages. Weblog technology is used to create the gateway by using the Blogger, a free service offered by Google. The Gateway is created and maintained by an academic librarian who has basic training and skills on KS materials and Korean language.
Online resources are evaluated by using several criteria including the creator, content, accuracy and up-to-datedness. Selected resources are critically reviewed, and annotations are provided in three languages (i.e., Sinhalese, English and Korean) and the blog posts include necessary links to and images of online resources. The listed resources will be periodically reviewed in order to check their consistency and modifications will be done accordingly. Each blog post will be tagged and indexed by using subject headings especially developed for KS by the Library of Congress (LCSH). Interfaces for major South Asian languages can be developed in collaboration with the other institutions in the region. An ‘Ask a Librarian’ service is planned at the second phase of the project as well.