New books are disappearing from public libraries. Can this continue?

South Korea recently hosted the World Library and Information Congress in Busan, drawing 3,500 library professionals from 120 countries. The event celebrated libraries as institutions that lead change in the age of artificial intelligence, but the commentary argues that this vision rings hollow while libraries keep buying fewer new books.

Between 2020 and 2024, the number of public libraries nationwide increased by 124, and average visitors rose from the 70,000s to the 170,000s per library. Average loans also increased, from the 100,000s to the 110,000s. Yet the average number of print materials held by each library declined.

The pressure falls particularly hard on acquisition budgets. A government statistical report found that 91 public libraries bought fewer than 1,000 new books. In the 2025 survey, 1,328 public libraries purchased about 6.58 million books, or an average of roughly 4,952 per library. That represented less than 8% of the new titles published the previous year, with most libraries outside the largest institutions averaging far less.

The share of public-library budgets spent on materials also fell from 10.2% to 7.8% over the past decade, even as total budgets roughly doubled, according to the 2025 Korean Library Yearbook. Annual book purchases dropped from 8.16 million volumes in 2019 to 6.74 million in 2024, a 17.4% decline. Some libraries have nearly halved acquisitions over five years, and requests for desired books have closed early because funds ran out.

The writer says surveys consistently identify a shortage of worthwhile new books as users’ biggest complaint. Digital materials cannot replace a strong supply of the books readers need, the commentary argues. It calls on the library sector to demand restoration of normal services and on local government leaders to confront the decline in new-book purchases.