UCI Libraries Collection Strategies is proud to welcome two new interns this fall. Youngmin Kim, a 2023 Korea Foundation intern, is assisting in collection development and public service for the Libraries’ East Asian Collection and Korea Corner space. Hyokyung (Carrie) Hwang, a master of library and information science student from San José State University, is receiving basic trainings in East Asian studies librarianship and helping prepare for the digitization of the Japanese weekly manga magazine Shūkan Shōnen Magajin (Manga is a style of comics, graphics novels, and animation that originated in Japan.) The two interns will also seek opportunities to help raise awareness of the Libraries’ East Asian Collection and Korea Corner materials. Youngmin’s internship will continue until July 25, 2024, whereas Carrie’s will run through December 6, 2023.

“I’m excited to be able to share my professional knowledge and experience with younger generations of librarians,” said Research Librarian for Asian Studies Ying Zhang, who will be supervising the two. “It is nice to get a helping hand from such skilled interns.”

LIBRARY SCIENCE INTERN

Working toward a career in East Asian librarianship, Carrie sees her internship as advantageous.

“Through this internship I will gain invaluable experience in the digitization of East Asian resources,” she said. “By shadowing Dr. Zhang, who is involved in East Asian language materials acquisition and management, I also expect to deepen my understanding of the intricacies involved in curating and maintaining such collections.”

With a master of arts in East Asian area studies and Japanese proficiency, Carrie is well-suited to her project. So far, she has been assessing the condition of the manga, producing an article- and issue-level inventory, and developing a metadata structure for the collection.

“In North America, we have the most complete holding of this once flagship youth manga magazine in Japan,” Zhang explained about Shūkan Shōnen Magajin. “I noticed some damage, such as missing and torn pages, across magazine issues, so we are in an urgent need of Carrie’s help preserving this collection.”

Carrie claims that UCI Libraries’ East Asian Collection was a big source of her interest in accepting the UCI internship. She has had fun exploring the manga magazine collection since her internship began.

“It reconnects me with the happy memories of my childhood, spent engrossed in similar manga magazines,” Carrie shared. “It’s been a fun learning experience to explore Japanese cultural norms of the past.”

KOREA FOUNDATION INTERNSHIP

Youngmin will have the chance to come up with her own project over the course of her internship. As of right now, she is leaning toward a project involving South Korean contemporary culture and social issues.

Youngmin’s interests are in academic and Korean studies librarianship. Having studied interdisciplinary studies with a cultural contents convergence concentration at Chung-Ang University, she wants to grow her expertise as well as get practical field experience by interning with UCI Libraries.

“Until now, I have mainly done theoretical studies and very simple tasks in the library,” she said. “I believe that this internship will be a good experience for me.”

The idea of getting to know new people and attending library conferences is also exciting for her. Youngmin chose UCI Libraries for her internship, however, because of her interest in diversity and equality.

“Among the list of libraries in the Korea Foundation Global Challengers Program, I thought that UCI Libraries best matched my interests,” said Youngmin. “I have previously done an activity to introduce library programs related to social issues to a library and information science student organization that I was part of.”

Having assisted with projects such as the proposal of a new library website and classification system, Youngmin has experience volunteering and working in libraries.

Since 2016, UCI Libraries have now hosted seven interns including Youngmin from the Korea Foundation through the KF Global Challengers Program. According to the KF Global Challengers webpage, “the Korea Foundation offers the next-generation talents of Korea a chance to gain real-life work experiences… in order to reinforce and advance their professional careers.” Through this program, interns from South Korea travel to the United States to intern with UCI Libraries in Irvine. Their internships, which have a duration of 10 months, are paid for by the Korea Foundation.

For more information about the UCI Libraries’ East Asian Collection, see the Asian Studies Research Guide or contact Research Librarian for Asian Studies Ying Zhang.

The header image for this story is a group photo of Korea Foundation intern Youngmin Kim (left), Research Librarian for Asian Studies Ying Zhang (center), and library science intern Hyokyung (Carrie) Hwang (right).