Last Year, 38 Public Libraries Increased... Number of Visitors Decreased

Volunteer Target Population per Location 45,723... 3.3% Decrease Since 2018
"Seoul Metropolitan Area Libraries Still Require Expansion Based on Volunteer Target Population"

Public libraries have been found to appropriately respond to the knowledge information and cultural arts society.

According to the Public Library Statistical Survey (based on 2019) released on the 30th by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, the number of public libraries last year was 1,134. This is a 3.5% (38 locations) increase from the previous year (1,096 locations). The population served per library was 45,723, a 3.3% decrease from the previous year. This indicates that a more comfortable and pleasant environment for using libraries has been created.

The regions with the most public libraries were Gyeonggi (13 locations) and Seoul (7 locations). In terms of regional distribution, they accounted for an overwhelming share with 277 and 180 locations respectively. Following were Gyeongnam (72 locations), Jeonnam (70 locations), Gyeongbuk (66 locations), and Chungnam (63 locations). A Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official stated, “Although the expansion of libraries in the metropolitan area was higher than in other regions, expansion is still required when considering the population served per library.”

The number of books held by public libraries was approximately 115.08 million volumes, a 3.3% increase from the previous year. The number of books per library was 101,486 volumes, and the number of books per capita was 2.22 volumes. These figures represent increases of 0.8% and 4.2% respectively from the previous year. The Ministry official said, “Both the number of public libraries and books per capita have increased,” adding, “It is understood that overall infrastructure and services have improved.”

The number of public library staff increased by 982 from the previous year to 17,558. This translates to 15.5 staff members per library. Among them, the number of librarians was 6.0 per library (6,794 in total), which was the same as the previous year (6,500).

The number of visitors to public libraries was recorded at 284.41 million. This equates to 250,804 visitors per library. This is about a 1% (2,661 visitors) decrease from the previous year (253,465 visitors). On the other hand, the number of website visits was 558,977,779, a 67.4% increase from the previous year (387,394,960 visits).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.