690,000 Documentary Heritage Records: From Preservation to Future Value

30th Anniversary Academic Conference of the Andong Korean Studies Promotion Institute

Traditional documentary heritage, which has primarily focused on collection and preservation, is seeking a qualitative transformation into cultural content with contemporary value.

View of the Korea National Academy of Korean Studies in Andong.

The Andong Korean Studies Promotion Institute will hold an academic conference to commemorate its 30th anniversary at the KSI Training Center over two days starting from September 17. Together with the Korean Confucianism Society, the Korean Bibliographic Society, the Society for History and Culture, and the Korean Historical Society, detailed directions for the qualitative advancement of traditional documentary heritage will be explored. The conference will focus on topics such as Confucian studies, the humanities of documentary heritage and records, regional studies and locality, microhistory and social history, and K-content based on documentary heritage, in order to establish a new model for the promotion of Korean studies.

This policy shift is backed by the Institute’s unique academic achievements and the collection of approximately 690,000 private documents accumulated over the past 30 years. Established in 1996, the Andong Korean Studies Promotion Institute holds two records on the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register and three on the Asia-Pacific regional register. Based on Confucian records from northern Gyeongsang Province, it has also published the “Compendium of Korean Confucian Thought” and the “Research Series on Modern and Contemporary Korean Confucian Thought.” Research in microhistory and social history that reconstructs the lives of ordinary people is also carried out on a scale of about 20 volumes annually.

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