The National Library was selected from a short-list of seven, out of a total of 36, nominations to receive the US$30,000 prize, funded by the city of Cheongju. The laureate of the prize is proposed by the Bureau and Advisory Board of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme for the preservation of documentary heritage and is designated by the Director-General of UNESCO.

The prize commemorates the inscription on the Memory of the World Register of the oldest known book of movable metal print in the world, the Buljo jikji simche yojeol. Printed in two volumes in Korea in 1377 A.D., The Jikji contains the essentials of Zen Buddhism. The first volume of the work is missing and the second is kept in the Bibliothèque nationale of France.

The six other short-listed nominations for the prize were: the National Library of Australia, the Departamento del Valle del Cauca (Colombia), the National Mission for Manuscripts (India), the Universidad Centroamericana (Nicaragua), Fathi Hassan Saleh (Egypt), and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania.

Created in 2004, the UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize is given biennially to individuals or organizations that have made significant contribution to the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage. It is awarded in an official ceremony either in Paris or in the Republic of Korea on the occasion of the Jikji Day.