KOREA FOUNDATION

KF Global Challengers Internship Letter

I have been working at the East Asia Library of the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Washington, since last March. UW is not located in Washington, DC, but in Washington State, in the Northwest region of the United States. As a university representing the state, UW has as many as 17 libraries, including the East Asia Library (EAL), which has a great collection of Korean Studies books.
   EAL’s Korean Studies section has four Korean librarians and staff members, and I carry out assignments under the supervision of Yi Hyo-kyoung, Head of Public Services and the Korean Studies Librarian. I do research and update information about ancient books and rare materials in the EAL collection. I also study the history of the Korean independence struggle in Seattle and am making a catalog of photographs showing Korea in the 1970s that have been recently donated to EAL. This involves checking, researching, and digitalizing the photos. While working on these projects, I get cataloging training from Lee Kyung-sook, a former intern and member of the first group of KF Global Challengers. I put hard work into these projects as I am greatly interested in all of them.
   In mid-March, I attended a conference of the Council on East Asian Libraries, a division of the Association for Asian Studies, held in Denver, Colorado. Here, I had the opportunity to broaden my horizons, listening to lectures and meeting experts in Korean Studies and East Asian Studies and related personnel who had come from all across North America, the Netherlands, and Japan. The EAL director led the conference, and many UW professors and librarians made presentations there. At the conference, I also met KF interns at other institutions and talked with them about our respective schools and libraries and exchanged helpful tips. In our free time, we toured around the city of Denver and had a wonderful time together. We also attended the KF reception and were given much encouragement from the KF President and many others.

KF Library Internship East Asia Library, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington Kang Tae-woong

Internship US Library Museum