Elena at the National Library of Korea: a one-day pass for a passport, and two exhibitions

Elena’s notebook has a page set aside for the scenes the screen leaves out. She is 27, from Spain, and likes to reread drama scenes in the real places they show. She numbers every scene and writes camera directions in square brackets, like “[Close-up]”. Lately the line that turns up most on that page is “[Library — already inside]”. On screen, library scenes never begin at the door, they always start right among the shelves.

What Elena has always wondered about is the few minutes just before that scene. How did the characters get through the front door and all the way to the shelves? Which card did they get, where did they leave their bags, and which gate did they pass? On screen, those minutes vanish in a single cut. On this trip, Elena has decided to walk them herself and fill them in.

Today she is heading to the National Library of Korea, at 201 Banpo-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul. It is a 10-minute walk from Exit 6 of Seocho Station on Line 2. Traveller or Seoul resident, you need a library card before you can enter the reading rooms. Elena plans to note the order first: a one-day pass on her passport, then leaving her bag, then the gate. After that she will see “The Great Legacy” in the Rare Books Room on the 5th floor of the main building, and a small games exhibition on B3 of the Digital Library.

She has picked Wednesday 18 November, a weekday afternoon. The reading rooms open every day, weekends included, from 09:00 to 18:00. On Wednesdays, the book room on the 4th floor of the main building stays open until 21:00 as the evening library. In November, the regular closing days are two Mondays, the 9th and the 23rd, so Elena only has to avoid those. On a fresh page of her notebook, she writes the first line: “[Wednesday afternoon — 4F until night]”.

The Cue

The National Library of Korea is at 201 Banpo-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul. It is a 10-minute walk from Seocho Station (Line 2) Exit 6, or from Express Bus Terminal Station (Lines 3, 7 and 9) Exit 5. It is open to visitors aged 16 and over, and you need a library card to enter the reading rooms. Travellers get a one-day pass by showing ID (“resident registration card, passport, etc.”) at the card issuing office on the 1st floor of the main building or on B3 of the Digital Library. The reading rooms open daily 09:00–18:00, the 4th floor stays open until 21:00 on Wednesdays, and the regular closing days in November are the 9th and the 23rd. Right now “The Great Legacy” is on the 5th floor of the main building (until 21 March 2027), and “Discontinued Korean Games, Switched Back On” is on B3 of the Digital Library (until 31 December).

Which exit to use — Seocho Station Exit 6 or Express Bus Terminal Station Exit 5, then 10 minutes on foot

There are two subway routes to the library, and both end with a 10-minute walk. On Line 2, get off at Seocho Station and take Exit 6. On Lines 3, 7 or 9, get off at Express Bus Terminal Station. From there, take Exit 5 and turn left. The walk is the same length from both, so pick the station you can reach without changing lines.

Open in Kakao Map — Seocho Station

Elena comes on Line 2 and leaves Seocho Station by Exit 6. Before stepping outside, she enters “201 Banpo-daero” in her map app. On an unfamiliar route, putting the address in first saves you stopping at the exit to work out which way to go. By bus, take trunk bus 405 or 740, or branch bus 5413, and get off at “Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital”. Village buses Seocho 13 and Seocho 21 stop at a stop simply called “National Library of Korea”.

During the 10-minute walk, Elena goes over the day’s scene numbers again. Scene 1 is where she gets the pass, scene 2 is where she leaves her bag, and scene 3 is the gate. Scenes 4 and 5 are the two exhibitions, and scene 6 is the shelves on the 4th floor at night. On screen, scenes 1 to 3 barely fill a single shot, so today she will pull each one out and give it time, like a scene of its own. This is how Elena always reads a place, by setting out the order of scenes first.

Arriving at the library, you first see a low, wide grey building. The site holds the main building, the Digital Library, the Preservation Centre, the Librarian Training Centre and the International Conference Hall, and this one is the main building. It is a box-shaped block clad in pale grey stone, with long glass walls running between upright pillars. In front lie a lawn and a walkway of square stone slabs, with large trees on either side. Elena doesn’t go straight in, and stands by the lawn for a long time, taking in the whole front as if it were one scene.

Before going in, Elena writes down in her notebook how the library got here. It first opened on 15 October 1945 in Sogong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul. In December 1974, it left Sogong-dong and moved to Namsan, the wooded mountain in central Seoul. The main building moved from Namsan to its present home in Banpo-dong, Seocho-gu, on 28 May 1988. The Digital Library next door opened much later, on 25 May 2009.

Three boxes now sit side by side in her notebook: “[Sogong-dong] → [Namsan] → [Banpo-dong]”. Elena enjoys the fact that the same library has moved twice within Seoul. In drama terms, it is a lead character moving house twice halfway through the story. And Banpo-dong, where she is standing, is its third home. She puts a small dot by the last box, labels it “Here now”, and walks towards the main building.

Getting a one-day pass with your passport — card issuing office, main building 1F, 09:00–18:00

For a traveller, the easiest way into the reading rooms is a one-day pass. You get it in person at a card issuing office. There are two, one on the 1st floor of the main building and one on B3 of the Digital Library. Bring ID that proves who you are. The ID listed is “resident registration card, passport, etc.”, so travellers just need their passport.

There are three kinds of library card in all. The one-day pass, as the name says, is used for one day and then returned. The regular pass is valid for five years from the last day you use it. The mobile pass is shown on your phone screen once you have signed up as a member. For Elena, a traveller staying in Seoul for only a few days, the right one is the first, the one-day pass.

In fact, Elena opened the online sign-up page the night before, at her accommodation. The page for foreign nationals lists four ways to verify your identity. They are i-PIN, mobile phone, credit card and joint certificate. Elena had none of them ready, and she didn’t want to spend ages lost in an unfamiliar verification screen. So she closed the page and chose to go in person with just her passport.

There is guidance for travellers like her, too. If you have no way to verify yourself, such as a mobile phone or i-PIN, just take your ID to the library. Once there, you can sign up and get your card in one place. If you aren’t sure where to start, ask at the information desk on the 1st floor of the main building first. It handles membership, cards, finding your way round the library and storing belongings, and its phone number is (02) 590-0513–4.

At the spot for scene 1, the card issuing office on the 1st floor of the main building, Elena hands over her passport. A moment later, she is holding a single thin card. She looks down at it for a long time. The characters on screen must each have carried a card like this to the shelves, yet the camera never once showed it. In her notebook goes “[1 — one card, close-up on hands]”.

One more thing about timing. The card issuing offices open 09:00–18:00 and are closed on closing days and public holidays. Even though the 4th floor stays open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, you need your card before 18:00 to use those hours. So if you are aiming for a Wednesday evening, drop in during the day and get your card first. For questions about cards, call the card issuing office on 02-590-0708 or 02-590-6258.

Where to leave bags and books — lockers and the clear plastic bag

Before the gate, sort out your belongings. You can’t take books you have brought yourself into the reading rooms. Permitted items such as a laptop or writing things go in the library’s designated clear plastic bag, and you carry that in. Everything else you can’t take in, such as your bag, goes in a locker. The library asks you to keep valuables such as your wallet on you, not in the locker.

The lockers are split between two buildings, the main building and the Digital Library. There are 680 on the 1st floor of the main building and 780 on B3 of the Digital Library. Each person can use one locker a day, and only during locker hours. The main building lockers are open daily 09:00–18:00, and until 21:00 on Wednesdays. The Digital Library lockers are open 09:00–18:00 every day of the week.

Before scene 2, Elena changes one part of her plan. Her notebook originally said the lockers on B3 of the Digital Library. The games exhibition is on the same floor, so she thought that would be easier. But today is Wednesday, and she plans to stay on the 4th floor of the main building until night. The Digital Library lockers close at 18:00, so going back for her bag at night would have left her stuck in front of them.

Elena crosses out “[Lockers — Digital B3]” in her notebook and writes “[Main building 1F]” instead. If you are staying until Wednesday evening, the 1st-floor lockers in the main building are the safer choice. If you plan to leave before 18:00, either building’s lockers will do. Choose where to leave your bag by when you will leave, not by where you go in. Elena notes this as the day’s first correction and puts a small star in the corner of the page.

In Elena’s bag is a Spanish novel she has been reading at her accommodation. Personal books aren’t allowed in, so the novel goes straight into the locker. After a moment’s thought, she puts in the notebook she always carries as well. Instead, she opens the notes app on her phone to keep today’s brackets there and copy them into the notebook at night. Her phone, passport and wallet are valuables, so she keeps them on her rather than in the locker.

What is on each floor past the gate — main building, 1st to 5th floor

With your belongings sorted, next comes the gate, which you pass with your library card. You hold a regular pass or one-day pass to the top of the exit gate and walk through. Elena notes the moment in her phone as “[3 — card, on top of the gate, 1 second]”. It is exactly the second the screen always cuts. With that, scenes 1 to 3, the ones the screen always skips, are all filled in.

Each floor of the main building has different reading rooms, so it helps to skim them before going up. The 1st floor has the Accessible Information Room, and the 2nd floor is the Literature Room. The 3rd floor holds the Serials Room, for magazines, newspapers and government publications, and the Research Information Room. The 4th floor is the book room, with books on the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, and it is the floor that stays open on Wednesday nights. At the top, the 5th floor is the Rare Books Room, for old books and records.

All library materials here can be read only inside the library. You can’t borrow books and take them back to your accommodation. Visitors must be 16 or over, so keep that in mind on a family trip. For a traveller, then, this is less a place to borrow books and more a place to walk the floors and sit down for a while. Elena, too, decides to spend today walking between floors rather than choosing books.

Elena reads the floor guide from top to bottom and sets the day’s order. First comes the first exhibition, in the Rare Books Room at the very top on the 5th floor. Then, while it is still light, she crosses to B3 of the Digital Library for the games exhibition. Last of all, after dark, she returns to the 4th floor of the main building to walk among the shelves at night. Put the floor that stays open late at the end, and you won’t feel rushed even if the earlier stops run long.

What “The Great Legacy” in the 5th-floor Rare Books Room shows — until 21 March 2027

“The Great Legacy” is on now in the Rare Books Room on the 5th floor of the main building. It runs from 28 April 2026 to 21 March 2027. A November visit leaves plenty of time, and it stays on through the winter until just before spring. The Wednesday evening library is on the 4th floor, not the 5th. So Elena makes the 5th-floor exhibition her first stop of the afternoon, while it is still light.

The exhibition shows rare books that came to the library as donations. Here, rare books means old books and old records together. In 2025, 26 donors gave a total of 1,795 volumes. That figure of 26 counts people and institutions together. This exhibition picks 45 key items from those 1,795 volumes and shows them in one place.

Leaving the room, Elena writes two numbers side by side in her phone notes: 1,795 and 45. From a large collection of 1,795 volumes, someone chose 45 items and placed them in one room. To Elena, who is used to choosing scenes, that looks like editing a drama. It is like shooting countless takes, then picking and joining them into a single episode. The line left in her notes reads “[4 — 1,795 → 45, the edit]”.

The word Elena lingers over longest is “donation”. It means books someone kept for years have moved to a place where anyone can come and see them. Elena splits that move into two scenes, in her own way: “[Someone’s bookshelf] → [5F]”. The “entering scene” the screen always cuts, she realises, exists for books too.

The Rare Books Room is on the 5th floor, the highest in the main building. So if you start on the 5th floor and work your way down, as Elena does, the order stays simple. On a Wednesday, you can simply pass the 4th floor after the 5th-floor exhibition. It is open until 21:00, so you can come back up after dark. Elena, too, saves the 4th floor for the night scene and heads to the building next door, where the next scene is waiting.

“Discontinued Korean Games, Switched Back On” in the small exhibition room, Digital Library B3 — until 31 December

The second exhibition is next door, in the small exhibition room on B3 of the Digital Library. It is called “Discontinued Korean Games, Switched Back On”. It runs from 14 July to 31 December 2026. If you go in November, this is one to catch before the year is out. The Digital Library’s Digital Resources Room and Media Creation Room open daily 09:00–18:00.

Having come down from the 5th floor to the 1st, Elena leaves the main building and walks towards the Digital Library. From ground level, the first thing you see of the Digital Library is a large, steeply slanting glass roof. Its main entrance is on the east side of the building, at B2 and B3. Elena loves shots where the camera follows the ground down, and to her the whole building looks like one scene sinking underground. In her notes goes “[Ground → B3, camera tilts down]”.

Each underground floor of the Digital Library has a clear purpose. B2 has the lobby, the Digital Resources Room, the Media Creation Room and a small auditorium. B3 has a card issuing office, a storage room, a large conference room and the small exhibition room where the games exhibition is on. So if you have come only for the games exhibition and the Digital Library, you can start straight from B3. You can get a card and leave your bag there too, but remember that the lockers on this floor close at 18:00.

“Discontinued” in the title means the games are no longer made or sold, and the exhibition is about Korean games that disappeared this way. Its introduction carries the line “We switch back on the memories of Korean games we thought were lost.” The exhibition follows the traces left in old floppy disks and CD-ROMs, game magazines and adverts. It also gathers the traces that survived in sheet music and articles. The introduction also mentions recreations made with artificial intelligence technology.

Reading the introduction, Elena’s eyes stop at the words “sheet music”. Music always goes into a drama script, but usually as a single line: “[Music in]”. She is a little surprised to read that traces of Korean games survived in sheet music too. Even with the screen switched off, a game could live on, on paper. In her notes goes “[5 — screen off, paper remains]”.

Elena likes the “Switched Back On” in the title, too. It is close to the direction for a dark screen slowly brightening: “[Fade in]”. Calling back a scene everyone thought had ended is a lot like what Elena is doing today. Looking down at her notes, she murmurs, “So a dark screen can come back on,” and smiles to herself. Then, for the night scene, she turns back towards the main building before sunset.

The 4th floor until 21:00 on Wednesdays — using the evening library in the book room

On Wednesdays only, the book room on the 4th floor of the main building stays open until 21:00. The library calls these evening hours the evening library. It is the same floor Elena passed on her way down from the 5th floor earlier. After dark, she comes back from the Digital Library to the main building and goes up to the 4th floor again. She has deliberately saved this floor for the last scene of the day.

There are two rules to know during evening library hours. The first is about copying. During these hours, only self-service copying is available, in the copy room on the 4th floor. The second is the window for requesting materials from the stacks. Stack materials for the evening library can be reserved only on the day of your visit, Wednesday, from 00:00 to 17:00.

So if you want to read stack books on a Wednesday evening, request them before 17:00. Turn up in the evening and try to request them then, and it is already too late. Elena has nothing to copy today and no stack books to request. Even so, she copies both rules into her notes word for word. They are exactly where the next person looking for materials is most likely to get stuck.

Standing among the shelves, Elena realises she is finally in the same spot as the scenes on screen. Library scenes in dramas always started right here. But today, to reach this scene, Elena has passed one card, one locker and one gate. The “[Library — already inside]” line from her notebook now has three scenes in front of it. At the very bottom of her notes, she writes “[6 — at last, among the shelves]”.

Elena just walks slowly once round the shelves. Today the star is not a scene of pulling out a book to read, but the scene of walking in this far. The 4th floor at night is calmer than in the day, and she wants to catch that feeling in one line. After some thought, the direction she settles on is “[Sound down]”. Her watch shows plenty of time before 21:00, so she walks back along the aisle she came in by, once more.

Leaving in order — collect your bag, return the one-day pass, back to Seocho Station

Leaving the library has an order too, just like coming in. First you collect your bag from the locker, and as the main building lockers are open until 21:00 on Wednesdays, Elena has no need to hurry. Next you return the one-day pass. If you don’t return it, getting a card next time is restricted, and if you lose it, you have to pay for it. Handing back the card she first held that afternoon, Elena thinks of it as the prop that opened and closed today’s scenes.

If you plan to come back, one more thing is handy to know. From your second visit, you can log in at the one-day pass machine with your username and password to get a pass. Elena writes this on the “Next time” page at the very back of her notebook. The first scene of her next visit will start a little differently from today’s. She leaves its scene number blank and turns to the next page.

Out on the stone-slab walkway in front of the main building, Elena opens her notebook and copies her phone notes over line by line. From 1 to 6, these are the brackets that piled up in her notes all afternoon. Copied into the notebook, the scenes stand side by side on one page for the first time. The card, the locker, the gate, the two exhibitions and the shelves at night. Elena renumbers every line and draws a small arrow in front of the first.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Going without ID

  you get a one-day pass by showing ID (“resident registration card, passport, etc.”) at a card issuing office. Travellers should bring their passport.

• 02

  Going for a card after 18:00

  the card issuing offices open 09:00–18:00. Even though the 4th floor is open until 21:00 on Wednesdays, get your card before 18:00.

• 03

  Using the Digital Library lockers when staying until Wednesday night

  the lockers on B3 of the Digital Library close at 18:00. If you are staying into the night, the main building 1st-floor lockers (until 21:00 on Wednesdays) are the better choice.

• 04

  Taking books in

  personal books can’t go into the reading rooms. Only permitted items such as a laptop or writing things go in, in the library’s designated clear plastic bag.

• 05

  Going on the second or fourth Monday

  these are regular closing days. In November 2026, the library is closed on the 9th and the 23rd.

• 06

  Walking out with the one-day pass

  if you don’t return it, getting a card next time is restricted, and if you lose it, you have to pay for it.

FAQ

Recap — 30 seconds before you go