Therapeutic landscape quality towards satisfaction: assessment in public library / Haslinda Husaini

As the world progresses, people are experiencing more stress in life resulting in an increase in the demand for therapeutic elements. Previous researches have proven the positive effect of places on the overall wellbeing of a person. Currently, the embodiment of therapeutic qualities is being extended to public libraries as a way to analyze the effect of the place to the overall person's health and wellbeing. This thesis demonstrates the relationship between the Library Therapeutic Landscape Quality (LTLQ) and Library Therapeutic Satisfaction (LTS) to illustrate how a certain therapeutic landscape can positively improve satisfaction. The concept of the library as a place has been developed into identifying the role of the library's therapeutic qualities. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the library's therapeutic landscape quality in Malaysian Public Libraries by analyzing the gap between users' expectations and perception upon experiencing therapeutic qualities in public libraries. Furthermore, to assess therapeutic satisfaction, the evaluation of the library's therapeutic landscape quality is applied based on the grounds of therapeutic landscape and library service quality theories. Therapeutic Landscape theory was first introduced in the year 1990s by Wilbert Gesler. As known, therapeutic Landscape has been widely employed in medical or geographical areas and gaining momentum in various health-related disciplines. To ensure the success of the study, an exploratory sequential mixed method of research design is being employed. Other than extensive literature reviews on the topic, a qualitative approach is being carried out to investigate any emerging themes on the therapeutic qualities of a public library. By conducting semi-structured interviews with the participants and later expert verification to help develop a model scale for LTLQ. Consequently, a quantitative study is done by collecting data from questionnaire survey results and analyzing it uses statistical methods. The factors in therapeutic landscape elements exhibit high loading factors from the factor analysis. Satisfying the objectives of the research in identifying the elements, examining the expectation and perception of the users in using public library therapeutic landscape services. Meanwhile, descriptive analysis has shown that there is a huge gap between the perception of library users especially in the variable of Library Spiritual Environment; proving that there is a significance in the LTLQ elements that affect users' expectation and perception in therapeutic landscape quality which indirectly showed the therapeutic quality that the public library exhibited. Finally, the result of regression and multicollinearity has shown a significance value of p<0.05 for all the three elements of Library Natural/Built Environment, Library Social Environment and Library Spiritual Environment towards overall library therapeutic satisfaction. In conclusion, it is confirmed by using empirical methods that all three elements being studied in the research greatly affects library therapeutic satisfaction in library users. From the results yielded from the study, it is hoped that the public libraries can benefit from the Library Therapeutic Landscape model and instruments developed in this research for library sustainability in the future.