• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.23-44
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• 2023

The word library(図書館) is a Japanese translation of the Western library or Bibliothek in the mid-Meiji period. This word has been accepted in Chinese(图书馆), Taiwan(圖書館), Korea(도서관), and Vietnam(Dđồ thư quán), which are Chinese-speaking countries. If so, when and who first introduced the term library to Japan and China? In Japan, the enlightenment thinker Fukuzawa's 『Seiyo Jijo, 1866』 is regarded as the first document to introduce the Western library, and in China, the article published in 『Qing Yi Bao, 1896』 by the reformed thinker Liang Qichao referred to as the first example. Therefore, this study traced and demonstrated the time and person in which the word library appeared, focusing on modern dictionaries, books, translations, papers, and newspaper articles that were introduced in both countries. As a result, the theory of the introduction to Fukuzawa in 1866 is wrong because Western libraries are described in various terms in many diaries and dictionaries, including Motoki's 『An English Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, 1814』. Also, in China, the theory of introduction of Liang Qichao in 1896 is not true because the term library first appeared in Ryu Jeong-dam's 『A Dictionary of Loan Words and Hybrid Words in Chinese, 1884』. In the same context, it is necessary to trace and argue the history of the first use of the term library in Korea and the name of the first library in Korea established by the Busan Branch of the Japan Hongdo Association in 1901.