This summer, three reporters conducted researches on the library of Dongtan Global High School (DGHS) to find out the ratio of humanity-related books to science-related books and to find the preferences of the students based on the books that they borrowed the most. DGHS is a school that focuses on subjects mainly related to social studies, so the researchers had thought it would be interesting to see if the library reflected the purpose of the school. They predicted that there would be more books related to humanities and that the students would prefer to read more of these types of books. All the researches in this article were possible thanks to the DGHS librarian who willingly cooperated in the research.

 

 

Category	Percentage (%)
General	4.21
Philosophy	6.78
Religion	1.85
Social Studies	16.99
Natural Sciences	5.82
Computer Sciences	4.75
Art	6.84
Languages	10.90
Literature	33.40
History	8.4

 

 

The first research was about the types of books in the library. The books in the library are following a coding called Korean Decimal Classification (KDC) system. This categorizes the books into a total of ten categories: General, Philosophy, Religion, Social Studies, Natural Sciences, Computer Sciences, Arts, Language, Literature, and History. Literature is a big category that encompasses all fiction books, thus it could be thought of as a part of humanity-related books.

 

The result was not surprising. In total, there are 19,414 books in the library, and out of them, the category that accounted for more than a third of the whole library catalogue was literature. The number of books categorized as literature was 6,484, which was 33.40% of the library catalogue. Out of the nonfictions, the highest was Social Studies, with number of 3,298 books. Again, this was an expected result because DGHS is mainly focused on subjects related to humanities and literature.

 

Then it was followed by language, with 2,116 books. From the third place to the last, there were not any major differences between the book counts. After language, the list was followed by history (1,643 books), arts (1,327 books), philosophy (1,317 books), natural sciences (1,129), computer sciences (922), general (818), and lastly, religion (360). However, the fact that the category with the lowest number of books was religion was surprising because the previous hypothesis was that either natural sciences or computer sciences would be the category with the lowest number of books. In general, save for one surprising result, the pattern showed that there were more humanity-related books in the DGHS Library.

 

In the following research, the reporters investigated the top 100 books checked out in DGHS library. This was to find out the actual preferences of the students based on the books that they checked out the most. The prediction was that students would read more humanity-related books because of the characteristic of DGHS as being a school focusing on studies related to humanities. Here is the result.

 

Footnote for the graph: This data includes various books that were required for certain courses or assessments

 

In general, students borrow literature books the most, and this could be seen in the fact that 75 books out of 100 top rented books were literature books. While literature was an almost dominant preference for DGHS students, the next top checked-out was related to social studies. 17 books out of 100 books were social studies books. Social studies was then followed by natural sciences (3 books), language (2 books), history (2 books), and philosophy (1 book). The result of this particular research showed that DGHS students prefer to read fiction than non-fiction, and if they do choose a non-fiction book, it is likely to be related to social studies.

 

Both researches conducted showed that the library, too, was mainly focused on humanity-related books. Relatively, there was more supply of books that were categorized literature, language, social studies, than books that were categorized natural sciences or computer sciences. The second research showed that students have a distinct preference on humanity related subjects when it comes to their choice of books. In this school, students have more interest on humanities-related subjects, and this might be due to that the jobs that students are aiming for are related to social studies or literature. However, the reporters would like to conclude this research by encouraging students to read more. And this time, to read proportionately. As Dr. Seuss mentioned, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go.”

 

 

By Da-Eun Lee, Hyun-Seo Cho, Su-Yeon Kim (DG reporters)