Over the summer, Chang Young Shin Student Activity Center opened its doors to students. The center, run entirely by students, consists of many facilities to encourage more student activity. One of the most unique spaces in the center, also maintained by students only, is the book café. The KAIST Herald met with the manager of the Book Café, Min seok Roh (Department of Biological Sciences '12).

Please introduce the Book Café.

The book café is a student-operated library run under the motto of “Space of Thought with Books and Rest”. Currently, many educational and cultural, as well as reading activities are being run under the supervision of students.

How did the idea for the book café come about?

The idea for the creation of the book café had already been confirmed when I entered the committee. It is similar to other book cafés. When I joined the committee, we started talking about what we should do with the book café and how we should operate it. We visited various cafés we modeled after, such as Café Comma in Hongdae and Café Haecceity in Busan and gave deep thoughts about our vision and direction as a book café. We were then able to successfully open this September.

What do you think is the purpose of the creation of this book café in the student center?

The purpose of the book café is to reduce the distance between students and reading, helping them to mature mentally through thought. It is easy to think that humanities are difficult and foreign, but we aimed to inform the students that humanities is all about starting with a small, personal question such as “What should I do when I grow up?” and extending the boundaries of it.

Please explain how to use the book café facilities to those who do not know about it.

The book café is open from 4 to 10 p.m. in the weekdays with last order taken at 9:30 p.m. Upon entrance, there are books for browsing at the right, and to the far left there are spaces for discussion available for reservation one week prior to usage. If you donate a book at the book donation corner of the counter, you can redeem a cup of tea and participate in a lucky draw for 10,000 KRW culture vouchers. There are many other corners other than the ones mentioned such as book request, suggestions to the café and tree of thought that are worth visiting.

What were some difficulties you faced as a student-run café?

The shortage of manpower means that the opening hours of the café is short as well. Currently, the committee assigns two or three members per two-hour shift, but we are constantly getting requests to extend the opening hours of the book café. There are definitely limitations in the opening times as the café is entirely run by students.

Is there anything the normal students can contribute to in terms of operating the café?

Firstly, students can contribute to the book selection process and the utilization of discussion spaces. The placement of books at the café are decided by the book café team based on student requests but currently there are not enough requests. We have been purchasing the requested books that students would like to read or share as long as they are appropriate for users of the cafe. The discussion spaces have been created to encourage voluntary, student-initiated seminars and lectures. Currently, Freethinkers KAIST have been putting up weekly seminars on religion and history as well as scientific philosophy and we hope that other organizations will also put this space to good use.

Any last comments to the students?

The book café is open to all members of KAIST as a space for rest. Please do not hesitate to visit us freely!