Bucheon City Opens a New Small Library, ‘Gulmaru Little Library’

Bucheon City Opens a New Small Library, ‘Gulmaru Little Library’

Bucheon City opened a new small library, ‘Gulmaru Little Library’, for residents in Sosa-bon-dong, a small district of Sosa-gu, Bucheon City, Feburary 20th 2013. The expression of ‘Gulmaru’ in Korean means the main or center of text.

The main concept of the library is a kind of ‘Korean traditional reception room for all people in the village where they talk each other about their life, feelings, and thought’. There are five tables and forty chairs in center of the library when you enter there at first. Anyone can easily enter, read books and leave. Behind the reading space, there are five yellow green bookshelves stocking 2,400 books. On the left side of bookshelves, there’s a talking room where people can talk each other and tell a story in front of audience.

The library opens during 9 am to 6 pm on weekdays but 10 am to 3 pm on Saturdays. Everybody living in Bucheon City can use the library. The city changed the first floor of old Residents’ Center for Sosa-bon-2-dong into the library. The total space of the library is 186.89 square meters. The city spent $197,000 dollars for this library. It’s located on the first floor of ‘Didimdol Culture Center’ in Sosa-bon-dong, Bucheon City, South Korea.

An officer from Bucheon City Hall said, “The new library will be a place of meetings and communications through books and a room of culture for residents. After we monitor the way people use this library for several months, we will provide well-designed cultural programs about books and culture.”

<photo 1: Bucheon City opened a new small library, ‘Gulmaru Little Library’, on 1st floor of old Sosa-bon-2-dong, Bucheon City, South Korea, Feburary 20, 2013.>

<photo 2: A boy student and two girl students talk each other in front of bookshelves in a room for talking and performance, a newly open small library, ‘Gulmaru Little Library’, Bucheon City, South Korea. This new library is useful not only for reading books but also for meetings and communications between residents.>