East Asia Digital Library
EADL is serviced collaboratively by the National Library of Korea, as EADL’s operator, and the National Diet Library of Japan, as EADL’s partner. To learn more about each institution, click the link below and visit their websites. They are
The National Library of Korea selects knowledge and culture resources among its digitized materials, makes them contents, and provides those contents in thematic collections categorized as follows: rare book, history, literature, music, current affairs & economy, and ancient literature. In addition, you can explore the archive of newspaper and official gazettes published in South Korea in NLK’s separate collection as well. You can also visit and look around the exhibition collection—online exhibition of valued materials such as foreign records on Korea and exhibitions held at NLK.
The National Library of Korea is EADL’s operator and partnering institution.
1. National Library of Korea’s Digital Collection
|Digital Collection by theme||Valuable digital resources including full-text materials held by the NLK are curated and provided by theme(rare books, history, literature, music, current affairs & economy, ancient literature) for users’ convenient access.|
|Korean Newspaper Archive||Approximately 5.5 million articles and indexes(18 million) of Korean newspapers published from 1898 to 1960 are provided. These are materials with important historical values for political, economic, social and cultural studies of the modern and contemporary history of Korea.|
|Official Gazettes||Digitized Korean official gazettes cover matters related to national publications, constitutional amendments, laws and ordinances, treaties, public notices, public announcements, personnel and other public affairs.|
|Overseas Korea-related Materials||Korea related materials have been collected from overseas. In particular, since 2004, records on Korea collected by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administaration(NARA) are used for studying the Korean Peninsula landscape in the modern and contemporary periods and Korea’s relations with neighboring countries.|
|Online Exhibits||Online exhibits provide images and information of previous exhibits. You can feel as if you are actually walking through the exhibitions.|
National Library of Korea’s Digital Collection (Korean)
National Library of Korea’s Digital Collection (English)
2. Korean Memory Overview
The “Korean Memory” was constructed to collect and organize valuable digital information resources from the National Library of Korea and to provide a variety of access points to the end-user.
The Korean Memory presents collections by theme from “Old and Rare Book Collection” to “Collection of Korean paperback novels, Ttakjibon published in Hanguel”, “First Editions of Korea’s Modern Magazines”, “Korea related Materials before 1945”, “Korean Textbooks over the Years”, “Economic Policy Materials of Korea”, “Korea’s National Land Research Materials”, and “In Search of the National Folk Songs of Korea” among others.
|1||Rare Books of Korea||Rare books including national treasures, old books and ancient manuscripts are preserved by the National Library of Korea.|
|2||Korean Paperback Novels, Ttakjibon||Ttakjibon, Korean paperback novels published from the 1910s to 1970s, is provided by topic.|
|3||The First issue of Korean Modern Magazines||Magazines from 1910 to 1945, which show a life and culture of the public at that time, can be explored.|
|4||Korea related Materials before 1945||Materials on the economy, society, history and culture of Korea written by foreigners before 1945 are available.|
|5||Korean Textbooks over the Years||Forty textbooks published in the late Joseon dynasty, the Japanese colonial period, and the Liberation and Government Establishment Period are presented.|
|6||Economic Policy Materials of Korea||Materials related to major Korean economic policy issues are provided by era.|
|7||Korea’s National Land Research Materials Collection||Research reports on the national land of Korea including the history and evolution of its planning and development can be viewed.|
|8||Korean Pop Singer, Insu Nam & Ho Bae||The original melodies of popular songs in the early days of Republic of Korea are offered with sound sources.
※ The original songs of Nam In-soo and Bae Ho (singers whose original songs and cover songs are mixed extensively), are categorized and specified with sound sources.
|9||Documents of the Joseon Royal Family||Materials related to the history, origin, politics, ritual, learning and literature of the Joseon Dynasty are provided.The materials are also available in the EADL Digital Collection.
※ EADL Digital Collection Link (planned)
|10||Rereading the Spirit of the Seonbi (Virtuous Scholars)||Materials on the spirit of virtuous scholars, ‘seonbi,’ in Joseon are available.|
|11||The Silhak (Practical Science) Ideology of Ha Baek-won (pen name: Gyunam)||The writings and ideology of Ha Baek-won (1781-1844), one of the four great Silhak scholars of the Honam (Jeollanam-do) region are available.|
|12||Donguibogam: the Korean Traditional Medicine book||Donguibogam(Principles and Practices of Eastern Medicine) that represents traditional Korean medicine was completed in 1610 by Heo Jun who was the physician for the king and the royal family. The Donguibogam has been listed as a cultural heritage on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.|
|13||Dictionaries of the Joseon Dynasty||Encyclopedias, Chinese character dictionaries, life encyclopedias and specialized dictionaries compiled in the Joseon Dynasty are introduced.|
|14||Joseon Geography Books Collection||Geographic atlases were widely compiled in the Joseon Dynasty.|
|15||Korea's Famous Current Affairs Cartoon, Gobawu||“Gobawu” by a cartoon artist Kim Seong-hwan, which reflects the situation of the times when it was drawing, is provided.|
|16||Great Figures in Korea||Great figures of Korea and their writings in the original are introduced with commentary.|
|17||Korean Wars by Era||Primary sources related with Korean wars are provided with commentary.|
The National Diet Library Digital Collections is a search and browsing service for content the National Diet Library has digitized or digitized content it has collected and preserved (excluding collected and preserved websites, and packaged software such as CDs and DVDs, etc.). The interface is offered in two languages: Japanese, and English.
1. General Information
2. Types of Digitized Materials
Over 2.75 million digitized items comprise the National Diet Library Digital Collections. Items whose copyright protection period has elapsed or whose rights management has terminated are publicly available for browsing over the Internet for free. A summary of the types of digitized materials is as follows:
|Material Grouping||Era, etc.|
|Books||Books added since the Meiji Period up to 1968.|
|Some earthquake and natural disaster related books (including books added since 1968)|
|Periodicals||Periodicals published more than five years ago|
|Rare Books and Old Materials||Rare books, Semi-rare books, Japanese old books up to the Edo Period and Chinese old books up to the Qing Dynasty|
|Doctoral Dissertations||Japanese doctoral dissertations received by the NDL between FY1990 and FY2000|
|Official Gazettes||Japanese official gazettes from the first issue published on July 2, 1883 to the issue of April 30, 1952|
|Modern Japanese Political History Materials||Letters, documents, diaries, etc. held by Japanese politicians, bureaucrats, soldiers, etc. from the end of the Tokugawa period to the Showa era (Japanese) (English)among the personal correspondence, documentation, diaries, and other material collected by Japanese politicians, bureaucrats, and military personnel from the end of the Edo Period to the Showa Period.|
|Audio-Visual materials||Cassette tapes, sono-sheets (including the attached booklet), laserdiscs (including the attached booklet), part of the broadcast scripts up to 1980 (TV / radio program screenplays / scripts) which were donated to the NDL by the Consortium for the Promotion of Broadcast Script Archives in Japan, part of the manuscript of Japanese composers after the Meiji era and related materials|
|Maps||Maps published in Japan from the late Taisho era to the early Showa era|
Digitized Collections from Other Institutions
Materials on the Allied Occupation of Japan：From the documents on the Allied Occupation of Japan held by the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States, parts of the Records of U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, the Records of General Headquarters, Far East Command, etc.
The Gordon W. Prange Collection：Parts of the books in the Gordon W. Prange Collection (Japanese publications submitted to the Allied Forces for censorship)
Historical Recordings Collection：Sound recordings of music, speeches, etc. on 78rpm records and metal discs used to press commercial releases from around 1900 to 1950
Collections from Other Institutions：Science Films, Digitized materials of the University of Tokyo Library System, EXPO Aichi, Naimusho Keihokyoku Censorship Collection, etc.
Table of contents information for some of the materials has been converted into searchable text.
3. The Scope of the Provision of Materials
The contents (original texts, sound sources, etc.) in the collected materials are provided with the following three scopes of accessibility to the public respective to the conditions of each material. In addition, users can not only search and check materials available to the public via the Internet such as bibliographic information (title, author, publisher, etc.) and table of contents information over the Internet, they can search and check National Diet Library transmission content and materials limited to the National Diet Library.
|Public Access via the Internet||Materials confirmed to have no copyright or rights status issues.|
|Library Transmission||Materials not publicly available over the Internet, out of print or hard to obtain materials, etc. may be browsed in libraries participating in the Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries (NDL transmission).
Library transmission (Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries) is a service that National Diet Library began in January, 2014. Materials from the National Diet Library digitized content that are difficult to obtain because they are out of print are transmitted to public and university libraries so that they are accessible within each region.
|Materials Limited to the National Diet Library||Contents for which the conditions above do not apply.|
4. Secondary Use of Materials
For use of reprint and reproduction of the contents from The National Diet Library Collections, etc. please refer to the page below.
5. EADL Usable Metadata
The National Diet Library provides the East Asia Digital Library with bibliographic data for approximately 3,000 rare books from the NDL Digital Collection. It is scheduled to provide even more in the future.
Because all of the metadata from materials in the National Diet Library Digital Collection has been included in the 'National Diet Library Search' (the integrated content search portal of the National Diet Library), it can be obtained through the API (external interface) for the “National Diet Library Search”. The metadata provided by the East Asia Digital Library also comprises collected materials processed by the same means.
6. User Guide
Detailed user guides are presented in the pages below.