The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) said Tuesday that, together with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS), it will pursue a range of policies to improve the business conditions of small local bookstores and boost their use in local communities.
As a first step to expand supply opportunities for local bookstores and cooperatives, the government will improve the local contract system. It will also distribute "Guidelines for Boosting Local Bookstore Purchases" to local governments and education offices, recommending that public and school libraries actively use local bookstores and local bookstore cooperatives when purchasing books.
According to the MCST, local bookstores serve as "neighborhood cultural salons" that connect residents and regional culture through books, forming an important foundation of the local reading culture ecosystem. However, the business conditions of local bookstores are becoming increasingly difficult due to a declining reading population and changes in the purchasing environment centered on online and large-scale distribution. According to the 2024 survey on local bookstores, the proportion of bookstores with annual sales of less than 100 million won expanded from 42.9% in 2021 to 49.5% in 2024.
Accordingly, the government will first expand participation opportunities for local bookstores and cooperatives in supply contracts by improving the local contract system. The MOIS will revise the Enforcement Decree of the Local Contract Act to expand local bookstores' participation opportunities when public libraries and others purchase books. Once the revision takes effect, local governments will be able to sign private contracts without monetary limits when purchasing books from local bookstores or local bookstore cooperatives.
In addition, the local contract regulations will be revised to add a provision allowing book purchase contracts to be divided into separate orders on an exceptional basis, and to grant additional points to local bookstores and cooperatives in the credit rating evaluation category of competitive bidding qualification screening.
Among these, the private contract exception under the Enforcement Decree of the Local Contract Act and the bidding bonus points under the "Criteria for Determining Successful Bidders in Local Government Bids" will apply to "local bookstores or local bookstore cooperatives recognized by the MCST minister." To verify whether an entity qualifies as a local bookstore or local bookstore cooperative, the MCST will conduct a verification process through the Korea Publishing Industry Promotion Agency and notify local governments of the results. The ministry also plans to hold a related briefing for local governments and the bookstore sector in early July, and to begin accepting verification applications from July 15.
Furthermore, the MCST will request cooperation from local governments and education offices to use the revised contract system and to establish and actively utilize priority purchase ordinances so that public and school libraries can expand their use of local bookstores. Along with this, it recommends that ordering agencies separate book purchases from MARC services (registering information for library material management, printing and attaching labels, and other tasks) and allocate related costs so that actual MARC work costs are settled. This is intended to improve the practice of including MARC work in book supply contracts without setting aside sufficient separate costs, which had burdened bookstores. The Ministry of Education plans to inform and spread the relevant content to metropolitan and provincial education offices and schools so that it can be smoothly carried out on the ground at school libraries and elsewhere.
In addition, the government plans to survey the status of local bookstores this year and reflect the findings in policies to revitalize local bookstores, and to pursue a revision of the Publishing Industry Promotion Act to introduce a certification system for local bookstores and cooperatives. From 2027, the government will add a measure and one point for "cooperation with local bookstores" to the "community cooperation and bonding activities" indicator in public library operation evaluations, encouraging cooperation between libraries and local bookstores.
Revitalizing local bookstores is also a major interest of President Lee Jae-myung. At a Cabinet meeting on April 14, President Lee pressed for proactive administration, saying: "In terms of revitalizing the regional economy and the publishing market, please find a way to give the supply rights for providing books to public libraries and school libraries to local bookstores, rather than entrusting them to (non-bookstore) businesses. I have already said this several times, but no measures have come out yet."
Kim Jae-hyun, head of the MCST's Culture and Media Industry Office, said, "Going forward, we will continue to improve related systems together with relevant ministries so that local bookstores, the 'neighborhood salons' with diverse personalities across regions, are revitalized and the lives of local residents are enriched, while also expanding support for revitalizing local bookstores."
