The Treatment of Korea in American Reference Works
General Overview
How is Korea treated in American reference works?
In the past forty years Korea has gone from a rural agricultural society to a rapidly developing, techno-logically advanced society. Korea is in the forefront of global technology, business, and politics. Korean-Americans are among the larger, more highly educated, and socially prominent immigrant populations in the United States. For these and many other reasons, Korea should be represented in reference works according to its increasing importance relative to the United States and other countries in the world's economy. However, in reviewing many available reference works, we found that Korea was not adequately represented. American reference works need to provide more quantity and quality of information regarding Korea. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate how Korea is represented in these works and suggest improvements publishers can make in order to represent Korea fairly. In each case, what we deem the appropriate treatment is nothing beyond what is actually found in one title or another, "the best case." In reality, we could reasonably argue for coverage better than the "best case;" but we have taken a conservative position, more easily defendable. It is certain that there will be publishers that will come out with an even better "best case" as Korea's growing importance in the world becomes recognized. But for now rather than creating our own "best case," we will merely point out the "best cases" that are currently on the book market.
There are numerous reference works including printed works, meaning mostly encyclopedias of various kinds, and recently developed CD-ROM references. This report has two sections -- one examines the treatment of Korea in printed reference works, the other section examines CD-ROM reference works. The methods of evaluation in the two sections were quite different because of several basic differences in the way the two media approach their subjects.
Within each section there was a great deal of variety in the way data were presented. Printed reference works included multi-volume encyclopedias, single volume encyclopedias, children's encyclopedias, special topic encyclopedias, and yearbooks. We divided the works into five major divisions so that similar works could be objectively compared to one another.
Because we found that the approach in the CD-ROM section was so different from the printed works, we devised another method of analysis for evaluating the CD-ROM reference works. In addition to drawings and pictures, the CD-ROM's may also include short movie clips, sound bites, music samples, and examples of spoken foreign languages. Thus, many refer to the CD-ROM as a "multi-media" resource.
We hope this report will be useful to those interested in Korea, to students, Korean-American groups, business leaders, researchers, and others. We hope publishers will appreciate our evaluation and will take steps to improve their treatment of Korea in areas where they may find themselves below the level of their colleagues and competitors in the publishing world.
The Treatment of Korea in American Reference Works
Part One: Printed Works
Overview
How is Korea treated in American encyclopedias?
In general, most of the encyclopedias covered Korea quite well, but some were out-of-date or contained incorrect information. We first examined all of the current printed reference works available in local public, university, and secondary school libraries. In order to compare the printed works, we divided them into five categories. These include:
3. Student or children's encyclopedia
4. Special topic encyclopedia (such as art, or religion)
5. Yearbooks (or annual supplements to encyclopedia)
We found eight titles in the multi-volume encyclopedia category; there were some well known and lesser-known encyclopedia titles.
The single-volume encyclopedia category had eight titles; two of which were "pocket" or "concise" versions of another title within the single-volume category.
The special topic category contained eleven titles. According to our point system, this category showed the widest variation between the best and worst. Within this category several titles were clustered together as sub-categories. These sub-categories included religion, archaeology, ethnic groups in America, and world history.
In the children's category, five similar titles were compared to each other. There were three additional titles that contained so little information that they could not be compared to other works. However, these were listed on the rating sheets for the readers' interest.
We found four yearbook titles, three of which were companion volumes, yearly supplements, to multi-volume encyclopedia. The fourth volume, which appears to be an independent work, is called a yearbook but only includes a listing of statistics. It was more comprehensive than the almanac/statistical variety of yearbook, which we did not evaluate.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Title: The New Encyclopedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0-85229-591-X
Book Year: 1994
Title: Asia and the Pacific
Publisher: Facts on File
ISBN Number: 0-8160-1826-x (Vol I); 0-8160-1827-8 (Vol 2); 0-8160-1622-4(set)
Book Year: 1991
Title: The Encyclopedia Americana, International Edition
Publisher: Grollier Incorporated
ISBN Number: 0 - 7172 - 0125 - 2
Book Year: 1994
Title: Collier's Encyclopedia (Volume 14)
Publisher: P. F. Collier, Inc.
ISBN Number:
Book Year: 1993
Title: Academic American Encyclopedia (Grolier)*
Publisher: Grolier Incorporated
ISBN Number: 0-7172
Book Year: 1993
Title: The World Book Encyclopedia
Publisher: World Book, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0 - 7166 - 0094 - 3
Book Year: 1994
Title: Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact-Index
Publisher: Compton's Learning Company
ISBN Number: AG5 - C73
Book Year: 1994
Title: Encyclopedia of the Third World
Publisher: Facts on File, Ltd.
ISBN Number: 0-948894
Book Year: 1978
Title: World Fact File
Publisher: Facts On File
ISBN Number:
Book Year: 1990
Title: Webster's New World Encyclopedia (College Edition)
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN Number: 0-13
Book Year: 1993
Title: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN Number: 0-231
Book Year: 1993
Title: The Facts on File Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
Publisher: Facts on File, Ltd.
ISBN Number: 0-948894
Book Year: 1991
Title: The Cambridge Encyclopedia
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN Number: 0-521-39528 3
Book Year: 1990
Title: The Random House Encyclopedia
Publisher: Random House
ISBN Number: 0-375, 0-394, 0-676
Book Year: 1990
Title: The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN Number: 0-231-06938-3
Book Year: 1989
Title: Webster's New World Encyclopedia (Pocket Edition)
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN Number: 0-13
Book Year: 1993
Title: The Encyclopedia of Religion
Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company
ISBN Number: 0-02, 0-89256
Book Year: 1987
Title: Encyclopedia of World Cultures (Vol. V)
Publisher: G.K. Hall & Co.
ISBN Number: 0-8168-8840-X
Book Year: 1993
Title: The World Atlas of Archaeology
Publisher: G.K. Hall & Co.
ISBN Number: 0-8161-8747-9
Book Year: 1985
Title: The Times Atlas of World History
Publisher: Hammond Incorporated
ISBN Number: 0-7230-0534-6
Book Year: 1993
Title: The Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
ISBN Number: 0-335, 0-85066, 0-903796, 0-905273, 1-85000
Book Year: 1990
Title: World Christian Encyclopedia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN Number: 0-19
Book Year: 1982
Title: Dictionary of Asian American History
Publisher: Greenwood Press
ISBN Number: 962-279
Book Year: 1986
Title: Past Worlds: The Times Atlas of Archaeology
Publisher: Hammond Incorporated
ISBN Number: 0-7230-0306-8
Book Year: 1988
Title: Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN Number: 0-674
Book Year: 1980
Title: The Harper Atlas of World History
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers
ISBN Number: 0-06-270067-7
Book Year: 1992
Title: Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
ISBN Number: 0-356
Book Year: 1980
Title: Merit Students Encyclopedia
Publisher: P. F. Colliers, Inc
ISBN Number:
Book Year: 1990
Title: The New Book of Knowledge
Publisher: Grolier Incorporated,
ISBN Number: 0-7172-0525-8
Book Year: 1994
Title: Lands and Peoples
Publisher: Grolier Inc.
ISBN Number: 0-7172-8013-6
Book Year: 1993
Title: Children's Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0-85229-226-0
Book Year: 1991
Title: The New Grolier Student Encyclopedia
Publisher: Grolier Educational Corporation
ISBN Number: 0-7172-7137-4
Book Year: 1991
Title: Childcraft -- The how and why library (Volume 9)
Publisher: World Book, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0 -7166 - 0191 - 5
Book Year: 1991
Title: Oxford Children's Encyclopedia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN Number: 0 19 910 139 6
Book Year: 1991
Title: The Kingfisher Children's Encyclopedia
Publisher: Kingfisher Books, Grisewood & Dempsey Inc.
ISBN Number: 1 - 85697 - 800 - 1
Book Year: 1992
Title: The Europa World Year Book 1993 Volume II (Kazakhstan - Zimbabwe)
Publisher: Europa Publications Limited
ISBN Number: 0-900362, 0-905118, 0-946653, 1-85743
Book Year: 1993
Title: Britannica Book of the Year
Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0-85229-529-4
Book Year: 1992
Title: The Americana Annual
Publisher: Grollier Incorporated
ISBN Number: 0-7172
Book Year: 1995
Title: The 1993 World Book Year Book (1992 Review)
Publisher: World Book, Inc.
ISBN Number: 0-7166
Book Year: 1993