Debate over the Name of the Kim Dae-jung Library by the Yonsei University

The Yonsei University officially announced on 17th that they are going to build the ‘Kim Dae Jung Presidential Library’ with the building and the possessed materials, which will be donated by the Asia Pacific Peace Foundation.

Kim Woo-sik, the Chancellor of the Yonsei University had a press conference in a small meeting room of the main school building at 10 o’clock in the morning and announced that “We will be building the Presidential Library for the first time in Korea.”

The Asia Pacific Peace Foundation requested the name of the library to be only in English and to include the position ‘Presidential’ but the Yonsei University, following the case with the former President Lee Seung-man’s Historical Material Museum (Woo Nam Historical Material Museum), decided to put the word ‘Presidential’ in the English name but not in the Korean name.

Yonsei University will receive the real estates of the Asia Pacific Peace Foundation’s building (367 unit area of field, 3 stories down, 5 stories high) located at Donggyo-dong, Mapo District and 8045 unit area of a forest land in Aeweol-eup, North Jeju-gun, Jeju Province along with the research materials of the foundation and the materials related with the President Kim Dae-jung before his presidency. Yonsei Uiversity is going to take over the debt of the Foundation at the Industrial Bank of Korea.

Yonsei University will soon form the management committee to prepare the management plan of the ‘Kim Dae-iung Presidential Library’ and plans to open within the end of this year. A part of the library will be used as the research space for President Kim Dae-jung after his presidential term ends.

After the announcement of the ‘Kim Dae-jung Presidential Library’ building plan, the university`s personnel and alumni expressed their responses by stating, “There is a problem building a library taking the name of the President who is still in office on the surface of the political neutrality of the university.”

One of the professor at the university, asked anonymity and stated, “It surely is a haste decision to build a library taking the president’s name that has not been evaluated. I wonder if relating a specific president with a university will be an improvement to the university.”

One of the University Headquarter personnel also stated, “It surely is a burden for the university to have President Kim, Dae-Jung’s name. We just need time to pass by in order to overcome the sensitive public opinions within and outside of the university.”

Chancellor Kim replied, “We’ve decided on the name with the foundation. The purpose of the library which is for the development of scholarship research and education is more important than the name of the library,” to the reporters’ questions.

“No matter what the name of the library will be, I think the library will greatly contribute to the educational researches on current Korea’s Political Science as well as Economy, Society, culture and various fields,” stated Professor Kim of the Social Science Department.

Dong-Yong Min mindy@donga.com