• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
• /
• v.58 no.1
• /
• pp.99-122
• /
• 2024

This study investigated librarians' awareness of and demand for the librarian learning community in order to successfully introduce and operate the librarian learning community. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted targeting current librarians and a total of 474 responses were collected. The main analysis results are as follows. Firstly, librarians showed a very low awareness of the librarian learning community, while they highly evaluated the purpose and significance of such a community. Secondly, the motivations for librarians to participate in the librarian learning community were primarily focused on professional growth, solidarity with colleagues, and satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, in that order. Thirdly, the ultimate values of the librarian learning community were identified as improving library services, enhancing professionalism, fostering collaborative group exploration, sharing values and visions. Fourthly, the success factors of the librarian-learning community were ranked as follows: member voluntarism, a culture of collaboration among members, dedicated time (once a week), and a supportive environment (budget, space, etc.). On the other hand, the failure factors were identified as a lack of time due to heavy workloads, lack of member voluntarism, indifference from superiors, and insufficient support environment (budget, space, etc.). Finally, the willingness to participate is also very high. Furthermore, it was observed that there is a wide range of interests in various topics among librarians. The results of this study are expected to be useful as basic data for determining practical operation methods or selecting topics when operating a librarian learning community in the future.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.55-92
• /
• 2010

In terms of labor market accomplishments, such as income, size of the company, and the matching quality between one's job and college major (specialization), a very large discrepancy is observed between the graduates from colleges located in Seoul and those outside Seoul. But, when the department average score of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) at the time of college entrance is controlled for, the discrepancy is found to be reduced to a considerable degree. In the case of wage gap, at least two third can be explained by the SAT score gap. The remaining wage gap seems to reflect the characteristics of workplace. In other words, graduates with high SAT scores enter colleges located in Seoul and thus tend to find better jobs leading to earning differences. This result that confirms the importance of aptitude test scores suggests that in the labor market, one of the major reasons behind a lower accomplishment of the graduate from local colleges is due to a lower competitiveness of local colleges in attracting the brightest students. But, this should not be viewed as only an internal problem of local colleges. This is because the growth of local economies tends to haul the advancement of local colleges in that area rather than being the other way around. The agglomeration effect in Seoul where headquarters of large corporations and financial institutions gather is the factor that has elevated the status of colleges located in Seoul since this provides highly preferred job choices of graduates. When the competitiveness of college is significantly influenced by exogenous factors, such as the vicinity to Seoul, the effort being made by colleges alone would not be enough to improve the situation. However, the central government, too, is not in the position to carry out countermeasure policies for such problems. The regional development strategy boosted through supportive policies for local colleges, such as financial support, is not based on the persuasive and empirical grounds. It is true that college education is universal and that the government''s intervention in assisting local colleges to secure basic conditions, such as tenure faculty and adequate facilities is necessary. However, the way of intervention should not be a support-only type. In order to improve the efficiency and effect of financial support, restructuring programs, including the merger and integration of insolvent colleges, should be underway prior to providing support. In addition, when the policy is focused on education recipients-local college students, and not on education providers-local colleges, the importance of regional gap in compulsory education (elementary and junior high schools) turns out to be much important as the gap between metropolitan area colleges and local colleges. Considering the educational gap before college entrance shown from the discrepancies of aptitude test scores among different regions, the imbalance between regions in terms of human resources is apparently derived from compulsory education, and not from college education. Therefore, there is a need to double the policy efforts to reduce the educational gap among different regions. In addition, given the current situation where it is difficult to find appropriate ex post facto policy measures to solve the problem of income gap between the graduates from metropolitan colleges and local colleges, it can be said that improving the environment for compulsory education in local areas is a growing necessity for bridging the educational gap among different regions.