The opening ceremony of Okinawa Special Collection was held this past September 14th in the Sangdong Library of Bucheon. The UNESCO Creative City office also held an international conference hosting representative from Ryukyu and Okinawa on the same day.

For this event, three book donors from the Okinawa Special Collection visited the Sangdong Library in Bucheon; Takeishi Kazumi from Youjushorin (a book store), Ikehara Masao from Tinsagunuhana Library in Tottori Prefecture, and Uehara Kenzen who is a professor of History at Okayama University. Kakinohana Akihiko and other officials from the Association of East Asian Publishers and public libraries also visited Bucheon.

At the international academic conference, which was held with the opening ceremony of the Okinawa Special Collection, we looked at the peaceful relationship between the Korean Peninsula and Okinawa in the East Asia region and also talked about the Library Movement and the Publishing Revival Movement in Okinawa after the Pacific War. In particular, much attention was paid to the presentation of what kind of perception Korean’s hold of Okinawa.

In the general discussion, Professor LIM Kyung-taek of Chonbuk National University was the leader, Bucheon and Okinawa discussed how to cooperate with each other through the medium of books and reading culture. In particular, Okinawa’s prefectural public library offered to create a dedicated corner to promote Bucheon in its new library; the existing library will be relocated in December.

HAN Hye-jeong, director of the Sangdong library, stated, "I hope that Bucheon and Okinawa will exchange books and a variety of information from libraries to improve reading culture.”

http://news.bucheon.go.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=16469