Founded in 1959 at the Sorbonne by Professor Charles Haguenauer (1896-1976), a Japanese and Korean scholar, and attached to the Collège de France in 1973, over 70% of the Korean Studies Library is in Korean and classical Chinese. It includes some 30,000 works on ancient and modern Korea, covering a wide range of fields: literature and linguistics, history and geography, social sciences, philosophical and religious studies, fine arts and law. It also boasts a rich and varied range of documentary resources on North and South Korea, as well as early works from the Maurice Courant collection (1865-1935), some of which can be accessed online via Salamandre.
The library has a large number of periodical titles, including some thirty living ones. In addition to its annual acquisitions, the library also receives donations, in particular from the Korea Foundation, the National Institute of Korea History and the National Library of Korea.
The library offers 58 seats, including three carrels and two rooms for group work in a reading room shared by the five Asian Worlds libraries.
As part of the Korea Foundation Global Challengers Library Internship Program, the library has hosted a librarian intern every year since 2015, selected jointly by the Korea Foundation, which funds the program, and Collège de France.
