Korean Legal Research at the University of Washington
한국법학연구지침

Introduction
(Updated January 08, 2008)

Objectives of This Guide

The objectives of this guide are:

1. to introduce some of the most useful resources for finding Korean legal information, along with some hints about the best ways to use them, and
2. to introduce the East Asian Law Department and the kinds of services we provide.

Information about the Korean Law Collection

• History: The University of Washington's Korean law collection consists of books and journals in various languages covering all periods of Korean legal history. The collection received a great boost in the late 1980's with a gift of hundreds of volumes of books and journals in the Korean language, donated by Korean alumni of the Asian Law Program.
• Library Holdings: The Library has approximately 2,330 titles on Korean law and Korean studies. This includes roughly 2,093 monographic titles and 237 serials titles. Approximately 75% of the collection is in Korean.
• Collection Development Policy
  • Collection Goals: The overall goal of the Gallagher Law Library's Collection Development Policy is to "support the curricular and research needs of the University of Washington School of Law."
  • Current Collecting Korean law is still not a permanent part of the Law School's curriculum and there are currently no permanent faculty doing research on Korean law. Nevertheless, Korean law is considered an important component of the Law School's Asian and Comparative Law curriculum. As a result, materials on South Korean law are collected at the "Instructional Support Level". This includes primary materials in Korean and English and secondary materials in English. Secondary materials in Korean are added primarily when received by the Library as gifts. Materials on North Korean law are collected at the "Minimal Level". Nevertheless, when important materials come to our attention, we make every effort to acquire them.
  • Specifics: Currently, the Library actively collects the most important collections of Korean laws and cases in Korean and in English (when available), subscribes to a database in English, a legal newspaper in Korean, and to several of the most important journals on Korean law.

Viewing and Inputting Korean Text in Marian (the Law Library's Catalog), on the Web, and in Email

• Marian, the catalog of the University of Washington Law Library, defaults to displaying Korean and other foreign scripts in Unicode encoding. Follow the steps below to view Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Russian scripts and for proper display of diacritics in romanized fields:
  • Connect to the Marian catalog at http://marian.law.washington.edu/.
  • In Internet Explorer, select view, encoding > more > UTF-8.
  • Make sure you have Korean fonts on your computer (one of the following should apply):
    • You have Windows 2000 or Windows XP with the Korean IME installed.
    • You have a Korean operating system.
    • You have configured Internet Explorer for Korean Display and Input (Applies to Windows 9x or NT machines; see below).
    • You have another Korean IME installed (such as Twinbridge, see below).
• The UW Internet Connectivity Kit, http://www.washington.edu/computing/software/uwick/, is a convenient way for UW students and staff to set up Korean-capable internet access. This kit may be purchased on CD ROM. Some of the software may be downloaded for free.
• Windows 2000 or Windows XP offer great convenience and flexibility in viewing and inputting Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Both come with CJK support available. It must be installed as an option from the installation disk. Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Regional Options and set the software for Korean viewing and editing.
• Windows 9x or NT: Korean Support Can be added to Internet Explorer by downloading the Microsoft Global IME, http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/ime5_win32/en/ime5_win32.htm.
• Other Korean IMEs for Windows
  • "Technology for Hangul Viewing/Writing / by Sun-yoon Lee, http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/arc/libraries/eastasian/korea/ckm/manual/ChapterV.doc.

Notes about Romanization (Transliteration) of Korean

In the Library Catalog: Records for Korean books and journals may be searched by subject terms in English (e.g. Environmental Law-Korea South) or by Korean author, title or series information. Most Korean cataloging records in the Library's catalog include original Korean scripts, and it is possible to search the catalog using han'gul or Chinese characters (hancha). However, when searching for a Korean author, title or series, best results will be obtained by searching in romanized Korean, that is, Korean words transliterated into the English alphabet. As there are many ways to romanize Korean, it is necessary to understand the particular method used in American library catalogs. The standard used in library catalogs in North America is the McCune-Reischauer System (as modified by the U.S. Library of Congress). This is different from the revised romanization scheme adopted by the Korean government in 2000. The following webpage describes the government system: http://www.korea.net/learnaboutkorea/hangeul/revised.html.

The original publication setting forth the McCune-Reischauer romanization scheme is the following:

• Romanization of the Korean language / by G.M. McCune, E.O. Reischauer. -- Seoul, Korea: Printed by Y.M.C.A. Press, 1939.
  PL918 .M3 at East Asian Law Dept.

The above work is, however, quite dated, many of the examples being based on an earlier spelling of Korean. The U.S. Library of Congress' interpretation of this system, including word division rules, are found in:

• ALA-LC romanization tables: transliteration schemes for non-Roman scripts / approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association; tables compiled and edited by Randall K. Barry. -- Washington: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1997.
  Z663.72 .A4 1997 at East Asian Law Dept.

The McCune-Reischauer system is based on the pronunciation of Korean and not strictly on the han'gŭl spelling. Notice particularly the two different romanizations below of the han'gŭl syllable 법 (法) which, depending on context, could be romanized as pŏp, bŏp, bŏb, or pŏb.

Examples:

Korean: 韓國海運學會誌 (한국해운학회지)
M-R: Han'guk Haeun Hakhoe chi

Korean: 民法總則 (민법총칙)
M-R: Minpŏp ch'ongch'ik

Korean: 대법원
M-R: Taebŏbwŏn

Comparative romanization tables are found in many Korean dictionaries, and some information may be found on websites such as those below. Help is also available in the East Asian Law Department.

Online Korean romanization guides:

• http://mccune-reischauer.org/
• http://korea.net/Glossary/hangul1.asp
• http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/krntable.htm
• http://www.lib.umd.edu/EASIA/KoreanRomanizationTable.html
• http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/kor/kor26.htm

Step-by-step information may also be found in Korean Librarianship Outside Korea.

Note that when searching the library catalog, diacritics (such as the "breve", "ayn" or apostrophe used in Korean romanization) should not be input.

Word division used In library catalogs is based on rules established by the U.S. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/korean.pdf.

Romanization used in other indexes and catalogs (and sometimes the Library catalog) is not always consistent. In some cases, romanization schemes are inconsistently applied within one index or catalog. So when searching for romanized Korean text, it is a good practice to use the browse function if it is available, and/or try different romanization and word division possibilities.

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