CrossAsia Talk with Martin Weiser on „Closing in on the Unknown: Measuring DPRK/North Korea’s publication output traced through library holdings, ISBN and the domestic registration number“20.3.2026 {en}
Martin Weiser (FU Berlin) will explore how North Korea’s publication landscape can be captured through the systematic evaluation of library holdings, ISBN assignments and previously untapped domestic registration numbers.
Abstract:
Comparatively little is known about the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and its print publications remain a key source for academics. But little to no tools exist to deal with the limited but nonetheless overwhelming number of publications we now have access to and the diverse information they contain. This presentation will look at one particular kind of information those publications provide: changes in the country’s publication output. It begins with a comparison of library holdings in Seoul and the USA with the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and then decodes information included in ISBN assignments and the domestic registration numbering gathered from several thousand print publications to provide new insights into changes in publication output. The domestic numbering was not decoded before neither by scholars nor librarians, although it provides minute insights into yearly outputs divided by field as well as the delay between registration and eventual publishing. These three measures are then combined to give a fuller view of the DPRK publishing scene and developments which the traditional method of merely consulting libraries for available publications would have missed.
To join the lecture please follow this link*:
https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin/j.php?MTID=ma33c098efcfddfc5ed33f7045abff9e2
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Further information at https://blog.crossasia.org/crossasia-talks.
Source: ANN: CrossAsia Talk – „Closing in on the Unknown: Measuring DPRK/North Korea’s publication output traced through library holdings, ISBN and the domestic registration number“ presented by Martin Weiser, 26.03.2026, 6pm CET, online, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.
