The U.S. Library of Congress is making changes to the subject heading for Korea’s Dokdo Islands amid renewed attempts by Japan to establish the territory as disputed in the eyes of the international community. Now filed under "Tok Island (Korea)," the library is moving to change the entry to an old international moniker, "Liancourt Rocks," and is also trying to add “Islands of the Sea of Japan” -- the body of water Korea calls the East Sea -- for the higher classification of the islets.
The name Liancourt Rocks originated from Le Liancourt, the French whaling ship whose crew were the first Europeans to encounter and chart the islets in 1849.
The ostensible reason is to incorporate the decisions of the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Board on Geographic Names (BGN), two agencies that call Dokdo Liancourt Rocks. The change to the subject heading is to come in a meeting on Wednesday.
With the decision, major libraries and organizations in North America as well as around the world are expected to follow suit. And Japan is likely to take advantage of this in its efforts to stir up a dispute over Dokdo.
The Committee on Korean Materials under the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) on Monday passed to the Library of Congress opposing opinions it collected from Korean librarians in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and France, and asked the Library of Congress to postpone its Wednesday meeting.
Hana Kim, the Korean studies librarian at the University of Toronto, who concurrently serves as chair of the CEAL committee, said, “Japanese lobbying appears to be behind the Library of Congress’ move to change the subject heading from ‘Tok Island’ to Liancourt Rocks, and to classify it under ‘Islands of the Sea of Japan.’”
The Korean Embassy in Washington on Monday made urgent contact with the Library of Congress, asking it to maintain the current subject heading.
Lee Ki-suk, a professor emeritus of geography at Seoul National University who also serves as chairman of civic group the Society for East Sea, said, "If the U.S. Library of Congress changes the subject heading, the decision can have repercussions for other organizations. Korea should strongly protest, stressing the need to describe Dokdo in conformity with the resolution of the UN Conference on Standardization of Geographical Names."