Public Library as a Safe Space: Users’ Perceptions and Utilization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64612/ijiv.v2i2.68Keywords:
Users' Perceptions, Library as a safe space, Library utilizationAbstract
Public libraries are becoming more and more like welcoming community spaces that help people get knowledge fairly and improve their mental and social health. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Psychological Safety Theory, this study examined how people in a public library in Bacolod City perceived it as a safe place and how they used it as such. The Safe Spaces Act, or Republic Act No. 11313, is a law that makes public places safer. However, there isn't much real-world research on how safe-space principles are used in Philippine public libraries. To fill this gap, the study used a quantitative, descriptive-correlational methodology and picked 106 library users at random. A questionnaire made by researchers and approved by five experts in research and library, and computer science was used. The Cronbach's alpha score for reliability testing with 30 users who were not part of the group was 0.932, indicating very high internal consistency. It was July through October 2025 when the data were gathered. This study used mean and standard deviation to assess how people perceived and used the information, the Mann–Whitney U test to examine differences between age and gender groups, and Spearman’s rho to assess how the factors were related. Respondents strongly believed that the library was a safe place and said that it was always very busy. No significant differences were found between the groups. A strong, positive link was found between feeling safe in a place and using a library.
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