Information

The Library on the 5th floor of the Constitutional Court building is Korea's largest public law library and was established with the Court in 1988. The Library is 1,268㎡ in size and has about 290 shelves and 10 librarians. The purpose of its establishment was to support the trials and researches of the Court and give the public easier access to the Constitution and other law-related information. For this purpose, the Library establishes library development policies, gathers and organizes resources, informationalize the Library, services reference information, and exchanges with related organizations in Korea and abroad.

The Library builds up its collection of books by purchasing, exchanging, and receiving. Most of the books are related to the Constitution and law. In particular, it is currently (January 2009) exchanging resources with 88 colleges in Korea and 34 constitutional courts, supreme courts, congress libraries, renowned schools, and other organizations in 28 countries, including Germany, the U.S., and Japan. The resources received by the Library are organized in electronic databases by bibliographies, indexes, table of contents, and original texts for a fast and convenient search system for users.

Also, the Library has been computerizing the entire collection since 1992 to meet the new information environment and the various needs of users. Its accomplishments include introducing the RFID system for automatic checking-out and returning and convenient inspection of books, developing the integrated meta search system to search information and researches within the Library and in other places, such as the Academic Web Database, partner institutions, and online bookstores, and building the Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) service systems for the needs of individual users. In 2008, the new integrative electronic library was completed to integrate various electronic resources, multimedia data, and Web information in the existing automated book management system.

The Constitutional Court Library is constantly sharing and exchanging constitutional information and resources with related organizations to support constitutional trials and research activities and guarantee convenient access to law-related information for anyone. It has signed an agreement to exchange academic information with the National Assembly Library in 2002, the contents database sharing agreement with the National Library of Korea in 2005, the shared use of resources agreement with the Supreme Court Library in 2007. Currently, it is promoting the establishment of a national network of law libraries along with the National Assembly Library, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court Library, the Ministry of Legislation, and Seoul National University Law Library. It is planning to continuously expand exchanges and collaborations with many other university libraries, law school libraries, and academic research organizations in Korea and abroad.