PUSAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DESIGNATED UNITED NATIONS DEPOSITORY LIBRARY
Press Release
PI/1086
PUSAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DESIGNATED UNITED NATIONS DEPOSITORY LIBRARY
19980928 The Pusan National University Library in Pusan, Republic of Korea, has been designated a depository library, making it part of an international network of 365 libraries in 141 countries that brings United Nations documents and publications to users around the world. The Pusan National University Library becomes the sixth depository library in the Republic of Korea.Pusan National University is a government institution which was established in 1946. It comprises 12 colleges, six graduate schools and 27 research institutes, which have an enrolment of more than 25,000 students and 750 faculty members.
Five libraries are attached to the Pusan National University. The United Nations deposit will be housed in the main library, which has a fully computerized collection of 840,000 volumes. The Library has several reading rooms and is equipped with microform readers and printers, a CD-ROM network, and has electronic access to external databases. It is the first United Nations depository in the country located outside of the capital city of Seoul, and it is estimated that 34,000 readers would be interested in the new collection.
Since 1946, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at United Nations Headquarters in New York, which is part of the Department of Public Information (DPI), has arranged for the distribution of United Nations documents and publications to users around the world through its depository library system. At present, there are 365 United Nations depository libraries: 53 are located in Africa, 99 in Asia and the Pacific, 30 in Eastern Europe, 84 in Western Europe, 46 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 53 in North America. These libraries receive United Nations materials, with the understanding that their collections will be maintained in good working order and be available to the public free of charge.
United Nations Member States, as well as non-Members, are entitled to one "free depository", usually the national library in the capital city. In addition, the national parliamentary library, if open to the public, is also entitled to receive material free of charge. Other depository libraries pay a token annual contribution to receive United Nations documentation. Developing countries pay a significantly smaller amount.
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The designation of depositories is carried out by the United Nations Publications Board. The degree of development of the requesting libraries and the overall geographic distribution of depository libraries in the countries concerned are among the criteria used.
United Nations professional librarians and information officers make periodic visits to the depository libraries to provide assistance and training in the management of the United Nations collection. In addition, special training seminars for depository librarians are periodically organized by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York and by the Library of the United Nations Office at Geneva.
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