Kim Jong Un spent part of December opening several economic projects as part of the “20×10” initiative, which seeks to build new factories and facilities in 20 counties per year for the next ten years. The second year of the project just ended after being expanded in 2025 to include “leisure complexes.” These facilities invariably include a sports facility, library and shops.
Only a couple of new libraries were built as part of the 2025 plan, but TV footage of the opening events illustrated North Korea’s shift towards digital-first learning, especially in provincial and rural areas.
North Korea has made a concerted effort over the last decade to digitize its scientific and technological knowledge. The underlying objective is to make educational materials available nationwide via the intranet, rather than have everything concentrated in Pyongyang.
In the past, North Koreans defectors have spoken of being tasked with collecting textbooks and other material from the Internet before heading back into the country, with that material then going into company wide databases or onto the national intranet.
On December 24, 2025, Kim went to Jongphyong County in South Hamgyong province to open the new leisure complex where he looked around the library.
The entrance to the library is controlled with a key card system, helpfully held open when Kim Jong Un arrived.
Immediately inside the library entrance are a series of hexagonal standing desks, each of which has three computer terminals.
The computer hardware running the system is not visible, and this is likely to keep the look clean but also to stop users from attempting to run their own content or applications and download materials.
On the second floor, there are at least four further rooms with computers. Each is labeled an “Electronic Reading Room” (전자열람실).
Kim went inside one of the rooms, and we can see somewhere around 50 workstations, each equipped with a monitor, keyboard, mouse and pair of headphones. As with the ground floor, there are no computers visible.
The resolution of the images isn’t enough to get a good look at what is on the screens, but it looks like perhaps a catalog downstairs and a menu and search bar on screens upstairs.
There probably are books somewhere in the library, even though we do not see them in the TV coverage. However, I’d bet they are all or mostly copies of revolutionary tales and the biographies of the leaders.
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