National Library of Korea: South Korean Government-Run Digital Library-RISS and KRIC

Abstract

This chapter presents the result of an action research conducted by an IS scholar who was involved in establishing and running a digital library which was government initiated in South Korea. The lessons from the national digital library’s case include the issue of the relationship between national IT infrastructure and the success of the national digital library. As a part of building the national IT infrastructure, a digital library that combines all digital libraries which already existed in various universities and that can provide overseas information such as journal articles instantly to every Korean researcher for free was established. An empirical survey was done as a part of the action research which included identifying the user satisfaction rate of the newly established national digital library. After obtaining results out of the survey, the action researcher recommended to go ahead with the current way of running a nationwide government-owned digital library.