A citizen is choosing a book at the Seoul Library. yunhap news
It was found that the number of books college students borrowed from the university library was only 4 books per year. It has been reduced by half in 10 years.
The Ministry of Education and the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) announced the results of the 2020 university library statistics survey on the 7th. This survey analyzed the books and users of the library, and the cost of purchasing materials, targeting 433 universities nationwide.
Last year, the average number of books lending to the library per college student was 4.0. It was reduced to less than half of 8.3 volumes in 2011, 10 years ago.
KERIS believes that this is because college students’ information use behavior has changed. KERIS said, “The most important factor is the change in information usage behavior from the method of lending printed books to the method of using e-books.”
In fact, the use of electronic data continues to increase. The number of commercial DB (database) use per student has nearly doubled in 10 years from 130.8 in 2011 to 253.7 in 2020.
The university’s library investment remains unchanged. The number of books purchased per student was 1.7 books in 2020, which did not change significantly compared to 1.6 books in 2011. The cost of material purchase per enrolled student is also maintained from 93,335 won in 2011 to 105,250 won in 2020.
However, the proportion of electronic data in the data purchase cost continues to increase. The cost of purchasing electronic materials has increased from 290 million won in 2011 to 440 million won in 2020, and the share of the total purchase cost is steadily increasing from 49% to 69%.
KERIS Director Park Hye-ja said, “We will promote the use of electronic data in universities through the introduction of electronic data use rights and support for joint use.”
Reporter Nam Yoon-seo [email protected]
