Korean Image Archive exists to:
- Collect photographic images that record Korea's 20th-century history - most notably the Korean war, encounters with foreign powers, and its rapid development from an agrarian country in the late 1940s to a modern one in the early 1970s.
- Provide proper conditions for storing, protecting and preserving collected archival material.
- Arrange and describe material utilizing archival principles and make them accessible primarily, but not limited, to the Korean public. This necessitates that all public material has accompanying text fully translated into Korean.
- Provide reference services to organizations institutions with an interest in researching, exhibiting and promoting the Archive's material for non-commercial purposes.
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In special circumstances, license material for a fee to individuals, companies and institutions wanting to include archival material in their projects.