Have you ever heard the quote, “Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.”? This is a quote by Henri Frederic Amiel who is a Swiss moral philosopher. According to him, libraries give students lots of opportunities to become successful. Therefore, you must go to the library and find your opportunities. There is no need for KU students who are not not get used to the library to worry! I am going to help you get used to the library. University Library which is the library at KU has a total of eight floors. I want to introduce the floor guide and tips for University Library. I also met a staff member and director from the University Library to get more information. Let’s find some useful information about the library.
Floor Guide of University Library
From the first floor to the fourth floor, you can see Hue-Café, Digital Resources Room, Copy Room, Circulation Room, Group Study Room, Reading Room, Periodicals, Dissertations, Test Preparation Materials, Women’s Lounge , New Materials Room, References Classic Collections, Archives Collections and PC Room. From the fifth floor to the eighth floor, you can find Academic Resources Team, University Library Director’s Room, Reading Room, Seminar Room, Group Study Room, and Lunch Area. There are a lot of useful facilities for KU students on these floors.
Hot Spot in University Library
The first hot spot is Hue-Café which is known as a lounge for rest. It is located on the first floor. Hue-Café is a place to meet people, take a rest, do reading club activities and study whatever you want. A lot of students are already using this. Therefore, many students suggested to extend its regular hours. As a result, Hue-Café’s closing time was extended from 20:00 to 24:00. If you have not visited here yet, I recommend you visit Hue-Café. The next hot spot is the lunch area. It is the only spot where you can eat lunch inside the library. Inside the lunch area, there are tables and chairs to sit and eat lunch, so you do not have to go to a cafeteria to have lunch. The lunch area will make you save your time to go to the cafeteria and come back to the library. The last hot spot is a special reference room for North Korea. It differentiates KU’s library from other school libraries. It was made by President Park Jae Kyu in 2015. President Park was the former Minister of Unification, so president Park was interested in North Korea. The special reference room was built in University Library in order to increase specialties about North Korea. There are a lot of books, DVDs, and magazines which were published in North Korea. Sadly, you cannot borrow anything else from here because all the materials are not allowed for personal reasons. Furthermore, this place is a restricted area, so you need to be accompanied by Bae Jeong-hee, a staff of University Library staff, when you want to go there.
University Library Tips for KU Students
First of all, University Library supports cost of copy of the original texts and mutual loan service. Students can copy original texts or borrow books from other universities by using this service. A student who wants to use this service can get support of 20,000 won per year. You need to hurry because it is first come, first served service within the limited budget. Next, lockers are placed on the second floor and the sixth floor. If you use this locker for less than 4 hours, it is free. However, if you use it for more than 4 hours, you need to pay 1,000 won. It is cheap and useful but the number of lockers is limited, so you need to hurry to use them. Lastly, the service of loaning a book on a whole vacation starts on June. If you want to borrow books during vacation, you need to fill out the forms to get this service.
The Director of University Library’s Choice
Ha Chun-gwang, the director of University Library, recommends two books named A Trip To the Sky Lake by Ryu Shiva and The Fourth Emperor by Choi In-ho. He recommends A Trip To the Sky Lake because this book is about a journey through human life and fundamental goodness. It will give the busy people a short moment to rest through showing how Indians face their lives. He also recommends The Fourth Emperor because it shows the superiority of Gaya civilization, Gaya civilization’s influence on Japan, and superiority of Korean. Did you also see the placard hanging outside the library wall? You might have seen the placard about a poem while you were going up the stairs in front of the library. This placard is also his choice. The Director of University Library said the poem has a lot of feelings by using few words. He wants to give lyrical emotions and good feelings to KU students, so he hung this placard on the outside of the library wall.
