Self-checkout kiosks by the DVD shelves at Buram Library in Nowon. Photo: A Korean's Take
Yesterday afternoon I was standing in front of these three machines at Buram Library, my neighborhood library in Junggye-dong, up in Seoul's Nowon district. I still borrow books here on weekends now and then. Scan the card, put the books down, walk out. Nobody at the desk even has to look up.
Seoul had 214 public libraries at the end of 2025, by the culture ministry's annual count. Most are run by a district, a few by the city or the education office, and almost all of them are free to walk into. Borrowing is free too, once you have a card. Getting that card is the part visitors find confusing, and the answer to "can foreigners borrow?" comes down to one document. I'll get to that near the end, along with the National Assembly Library and university libraries.
Getting a library card
There's no single Seoul library card. Each library system issues its own: Nowon's district libraries share one card, Gangnam's share another, and Seoul Library at City Hall has its own. The steps are much the same everywhere.
- Sign up on the library system's website. That makes you an online member, but you can't borrow yet.
- Visit any branch with ID, and the desk issues a card on the spot. In Nowon the first card is free and a replacement costs 1,000 won.
- Or skip the plastic. Most systems now have a mobile card in an app; Nowon uses one called Libros (리브로스).
One catch: Nowon's website sign-up asks you to verify your identity with a Korean mobile phone or an i-PIN. If your phone plan is in your own name, that takes a minute. If it isn't, ask at the desk before you give up.
| Nowon district libraries (Buram) | Seoul Library (City Hall) | National Assembly Library | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Books | 7 per library, 20 across all Nowon libraries | 7, or 14 on Wednesdays | No borrowing, reading only |
| Loan period | 14 days | 15 days, counting the day you borrow | - |
| Renewal | Once, 7 days, if nobody has reserved it | Once, 7 days, if nobody has reserved it | - |
| Late return | No borrowing for as many days as your longest-overdue book was late | No borrowing for (number of books × days late) | - |
| Closed | Buram: every Monday and public holidays | Mondays and public holidays | 2nd and 4th Saturdays and public holidays |
Borrowing and returning without talking to anyone
The self-checkout kiosk at Buram. Lay the books on the lit panel. Photo: A Korean's Take
At Buram the kiosk does the desk's job. Touch the screen, scan your card or the barcode on your phone, and lay the books on the lit panel, which helpfully says "HERE ON THE BOOKS" in English under the Korean. A small label on the front announces that ion-plasma sterilization is running. Very Korean, very post-2020.
Giving them back takes even less effort. Any Nowon library will take them while it's open, not just the one you borrowed from, and after hours there's a return slot by the front door. Need more time? You get one online renewal, and only if nobody's waiting for the book.
If the book you want sits in another branch, request it online and it travels to your library. That's how most of my weekend pickups work: last month a book came over from another Nowon library and waited for me at Buram. Bigger systems link up the same way, and a national service called Chaekbada (책바다) can send a book from a library in another city. You pay the courier on that one.
There are also "smart libraries," vending-machine bookshelves in subway stations and parks. Seoul Library runs one in City Hall Station (Line 1, basement level toward exit 2) from 5 a.m. to midnight every day, stocked with about 1,000 books. You can take four for 15 days, but they have to go back into the same machine.
And if you'll be using libraries in different districts, look at Book-ee-um (책이음), a single card that works at 3,031 libraries nationwide, 524 of them in Seoul (as of October 12, 2026). You can have up to 30 books out across all of them, each library sets its own limit, and being late at one library suspends you at the others too.
What's inside a Seoul public library
More than books. Most neighborhood libraries have a children's room, a general collection, DVDs, PCs and free Wi-Fi, and Seoul's own guide for foreign residents points out study rooms and Korean-learning materials. Many also have a 열람실 (yeollamsil), a reading room that's really a quiet study hall full of students with their own textbooks. Nowon Central Library keeps its reading room open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Buram is a bit different. It opened on July 25, 2018 in a shopping arcade at Junggye-dong's Eunhaeng Sageori that had sat unfinished for 19 years. The district bought it and turned it into a library with a basement and four floors above ground, and it deliberately has no cubicle-style reading room. The basement rooms take their names from novelist Kim Young-ha's essay books: Boda-bang, Ikda-bang and Malhada-bang, roughly the Seeing, Reading and Speaking rooms. The children's room is on the first floor, the general collection and PCs on the second, and the third floor is for teenagers. That last part makes sense here. Eunhaeng Sageori is one of Seoul's best-known cram-school streets, so after class the tables fill with students. If you've read my piece on Suneung, you can picture them.
Book Master, the book sterilizer by the entrance. Photo: A Korean's Take
By the entrance stands the machine I always notice: a book sterilizer. The steps are printed on the side. Open the door and stand your book open on the rack inside. If you have more than one, press the blue button and the rack turns to the next slot. Close the door and press START. You'll find one in plenty of Korean libraries. Parking at Buram is free, 15 spaces.
Downtown, Seoul Library is the one worth a visit even if you never borrow. It's the old City Hall, built in 1926, and it opened as a library on October 26, 2012. The World Collections room on the fourth floor has books in English and about 13 other languages, plus a Korea Collection of books about Korea and Korean writers in translation. The embassy-donated books there are for reading only. The foreign-language collection has grown from 47,050 books in 2021 to 58,646 this May. The general rooms open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at weekends; the World Collections room closes at 6 p.m. every day it's open.
Why tourists keep photographing Seoul Library
Seoul Library has quietly become a photo stop. A Hankyung reporter who spent a Friday afternoon on Seoul Plaza in May found office workers reading on beanbags on the lawn while foreign tourists took one picture after another with the library behind them. A couple of weeks later the Korea JoongAng Daily called the library an iconic stop for tourists and foreign residents alike.
Some of that is the building. A 1926 stone city hall a short walk from Deoksugung was always going to look good on a phone. The rest is the lawn out front. Since 2022 the city has turned Seoul Plaza into an outdoor library from Friday to Sunday, with beanbags and baskets of books, and later added reading spots at Gwanghwamun Square and along Cheonggyecheon. Those three sites have had 8.14 million visits since they opened, 1.75 million of them last year. Reading is fashionable again among young Koreans (people call it "text-hip," 텍스트힙), and this year a fifth of the outdoor books were in foreign languages, twice last year's share. There were even Sunday reading tours for foreign visitors. The outdoor season ended on November 1, so the beanbags are gone until next year.
Stepped seating and the tall wall of shelves in the general reading room. Photo: Seoul Metropolitan Library
Inside, most people come for the general reading room. One wall is shelves almost all the way to the ceiling, and beside it run wide wooden steps where people sit and read; the library's own site calls this space Saenggak Maru, roughly "the thinking floor." From the top of the steps you look down on a curved wall of books wrapping around the lower level, and it makes a good second shot.
The curved wall of books on the lower level, seen from the stairs. Photo: Seoul Metropolitan Library
Then go up. On the fifth floor, the Sky Yard (하늘뜰) is a free rooftop garden over Seoul Plaza. After the city's Instagram account featured it as a free rooftop, a city citizen-reporter found foreign tourists up there photographing the plaza, Namsan and the Gwanghwamun area. The restored old mayor's office on the third floor is worth a look on the way down.
Can foreigners borrow books in Seoul?
If you live here, yes. If you're visiting, you can use the library but not borrow from it.
Registered foreign residents. Since June 10, 2025, Seoul Library lends to any Korean citizen or foreign resident of Korea, not just people who live or work in Seoul. You sign up online. Seoul residents become full members; everyone else becomes an associate member, who can borrow books but not e-books. District libraries are just as open: Nowon's membership is for any Korean citizen and anyone holding an Alien Registration Card or a residence card (거소증, geosojeung). Bring that card when you go for your library card.
Tourists with a passport. Walk in, sit down, read, use the Wi-Fi. Public libraries don't check who you are at the door. What you can't get on a passport alone is a borrowing card, because library systems tie membership to Korean citizenship or registered residence.
For English books, start with Seoul Library's World Collections room. Full members can also borrow English e-books through OverDrive; there were about 3,900 titles at last count, three at a time.
National Assembly and university libraries: can outsiders get in?
Years ago I used university libraries and the National Assembly Library in Japan for work. (Its official English name is the National Diet Library, 国立国会図書館.) Japan's National Assembly Library will bring almost anything up from its closed stacks for you, but it doesn't lend to individuals. Korea's big research libraries work much the same way.
National Assembly Library (국회도서관). You'll find it in Yeouido, a three-minute walk from exit 1 of National Assembly Station (Line 9). The age bar is 18. Younger teens, 12 to 17, get in only if the librarian signs off, and for foreigners a passport or alien registration certificate works as ID. First-timers register online or at a lobby kiosk, then take their ID to the information desk for a pass. Weekdays it runs 9 to 9, weekends 9 to 5. The odd part is Saturdays: the second and fourth of every month are days off, along with public holidays, so look at a calendar before you make the trip. Nothing leaves the building, but the copiers do, at 50 won a page.
University libraries. Nothing in Korean law makes a university open its library to the public, so every campus writes its own rules. The pattern I found: leave an ID, read for as long as they allow, take nothing home.
- Seoul National University lets in visitors aged 19 and over on a day pass in exchange for ID. SNU is also unusual in selling borrowing rights. A year of general membership is 120,000 won, or 80,000 won if you live in Gwanak-gu, and that buys you 5 books at a time for 14 days. Skip the medical library, though. Paying members can't use it either.
- Yonsei asks you to show ID at the gate and write down your details and purpose. Reading only, up to four hours.
- Korea University writes you into a visitor log and hands you a pass for your ID. You can read whatever is on the shelves, but borrowing is off the table and minors aren't let in.
So: passport in your bag, no plans to borrow, and you'll get through most library gates.
Quick answers
Is a library card free in Seoul? Yes. Public library cards cost nothing; in Nowon only a replacement card costs 1,000 won.
Can I borrow library books in Seoul with just a passport? Generally no. Borrowing needs membership, and membership needs residence in Korea, shown with an Alien Registration Card or a residence card. You can still read inside for free.
Are libraries in Seoul open on Mondays? Many aren't, or close on some Mondays. Most also close on public holidays. The library's own website has the closing rules.
Where can I find English books in Seoul? The World Collections room on the fourth floor of Seoul Library, at City Hall. Full members can borrow English e-books online too.
Can I use a university library in Seoul as a visitor? Often yes, to read, if you leave ID. Borrowing needs a paid membership where one exists, like Seoul National University's.
Official info
I checked everything below on November 8, 2026. Libraries do tweak their rules, so give these a look before you go.
- Seoul Library: borrowing, returns and renewals
- Seoul Metropolitan Government: lending opened to all foreign residents (June 2025)
- Nowon district libraries: membership
- Book-ee-um: one card for libraries nationwide
- National Assembly Library: visitor information
More from this blog
- Korean Literature After Han Kang: Where to Start Reading
- Seoul Bus and Subway Guide 2026: T-money, Transfers and Tips for Tourists
Got a Korean library card yet? Tell me which library you ended up at.
Photos: A Korean's Take, taken at Buram Library in Nowon-gu, Seoul, on November 7, 2026.
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