Young-Ju passed away suddenly in Vancouver on February 4, 2020, at the age of 85, from a heart attack. He was devoted to his wife Oakjae, children Jinhi (John) and Sungsu (Johanna), and grandchildren Lydia, Sara, Sophia and Henry.

Born in rural Chung-up, Jeonbuk, Korea in 1934, Young-Ju left home after elementary school to attend high school and university in Seoul, graduating from Yonsei University in 1959 with a B.A. in Education. He worked as Reference Librarian at the University while pursuing a postgraduate degree in Library Science. From 1965-1970, Young-Ju was an Instructor in the Department of Library Science at Yonsei University.

In 1970, Young-Ju accepted a staff position at the UBC Library (LA3, Catalogue) and moved his young family to Canada. At the time, the Cataloguing Division was located on the top floor of the Main Library. In 1979, Cataloguing moved to the newly built Library Processing Centre. By this time, the card catalogue was converted to machine-readable forms, and soon, libraries would develop an online public-access catalogue. Young-Ju also helped with music cataloguing and was a frequent user of the Wilson Recordings Collection. His own private collection has more than 500 LPs and 2000 compact discs. In 1998, he was assigned half-time to the Asian Library as the Korean Language Bibliographer. Young-Ju retired from UBC in 1999.

In addition to his love of books and family, Young-Ju enjoyed the outdoors (gardening, hiking, camping, cross-country skiing), native art (basket weaving, wood carving), flea markets, photography, recorded music (classical, jazz, film score), sports, politics, and movies. He welcomed progress, technology, and universal access, as these benefit everyone in society. Family, friends, and colleagues will miss and remember a gentle and caring person who believed in peace, knowledge, and education.

In honour of Young-Ju’s life, donations may be made to the UBC Library Collection Enrichment Fund.