1970~80년대 서점의 문화사와 ‘종로서적’ - 사회적 공간으로서의 서점과 지식의 공공성

Abstract

Chongno Book Center is a large bookstore that has established the modern bookstore model since its founding in 1963. Against the background of commercialization of publishing in the 1970s and 1980s, it played a public/commercial role by representing insufficient public libraries at a time when large bookstores and mass readers were emerging. In this article, we analyzed the expectations and desires of customers/readers who used Chongno Book Center as a social space in the 1970s and 1980s, and the way Chongno Book Center accepted them in a public way, and analyzed the possibility of Korean bookstore cultural history. First, in Chapter 2, we divided it into two moments: ‘Jongno’ and ‘books’ and looked at the social background where the place of ‘Jongno’ and the public/commercial nature of ‘knowledge/books’ are encountered. In the 1970s and 1980s, ‘Jongno’ was a commercial space where economic achievements were revealed and a space where cultural resources were accumulated. And at the same time, it was a place where the social emotions of youth culture gathered. During this period, the distribution channel of books changed from ‘door-to-door sales’ centered on ‘selections’ to bookstore purchases centered on ‘books’, and large bookstores were reborn as spaces where anyone could freely experience knowledge. In Chapter 3, we analyzed how customers/readers experience books/knowledge in a public/democratic way by accepting Chongno Book Center as a ‘book department store’ or experiencing it as a ‘street library’ as appropriate to their tastes. In Chapter 4, we looked at the specific activities that Chongno Book Center performed while assuming the role of a commercial/ public institution. The dual position of large bookstores in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the promotion of a fixed book price system, the publication of Comprehensive Book List, the publication of the reading information magazine chongno book, the operation of a publishing department separate from distribution, and the first ‘Conversation with Authors’ reader event for bookstores. In short, in the 1970s and 1980s, chongno book center established the model of a large bookstore as a social space by responding to the desire of customers/readers to democratically appropriate books/knowledge. This is the result of a connection between the location of Jongno, which was a hub for publishing culture, the expectations and desires of mass readers for democratic/public access to books/knowledge, and the founder’s orientation, which internalized the bookstore’s social responsibility based on Christian nationalism.