Humanities and Social Science Research; Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 ISSN 2576-3024 E-ISSN 2576-3032 https://doi.org/10.30560/hssr.v8n4p13 13 Published by IDEAS SPREAD The Mechanism of the Multidimensional Formation of Public Library Visitors' Perception of Worthiness: A Grounded Theoretical Exploration Based on Online Review Data Qianqian Fan1 1 Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, USA Correspondence: Qianqian Fan, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, Evanston IL 60208, USA. Received: June 24, 2025; Accepted: July 13, 2025; Published: July 14, 2025 Abstract This paper explores the reasons why public libraries attract visitors by studying the formation mechanism of the public library visitors' perception of worthiness. Taking the New York Public Library as an example, this paper uses the grounded theory method to conduct a qualitative analysis of the online English reviews on the TripAdvisor website, and innovatively combines the perceived value theory with the expectation confirmation theory to classify the perceived worthiness dimensions of visitors', revealing three dimensions of perceivable value: Planning factors, experience factors and outcome factors, as well as six sub-dimensions (main categories): visit expectation, imagination, positive emotions, satisfaction, appreciation and reward. A visitors' expectation confirmation model of perception of worthiness is constructed. The research results of this paper theoretically provide an example for the expectation confirmation theory, supplement multiple dimensions perception of worthiness for the perceived value theory, and provide suggestions for public libraries to play a cultural function, enhance their attractiveness, and meet the diverse needs of visitors in practice. Keywords: public libraries, expectation confirmation theory, perceived value, online reviews, grounded theory 1. Introduction As a public cultural facility in a city or community, a public library is a place for people to learn knowledge, and as a provider of public goods, it has the function of promoting social welfare. The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a century-old (founded in 1895) public library system with the philosophy of providing free and open knowledge and opportunities to everyone, according to the New York Public Library website (https://www.nypl.org/). A public library is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, not-for-profit institution, run by private and public funds, with a mission to "inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen communities" and rely on the "three major resources"— staff, collections, and physical space — to provide opportunities for people to learn and grow [1]. For visitors, public libraries are more than just spaces that provide services, socialization, interaction, and social infrastructure for visitors [2][3][4], and it is also an important way for visitors to experience the cultural atmosphere of a city. Some scholars have studied visitors' perception of the atmosphere, design and comfort of public libraries from the perspective of spatial perception [5], and many people are attracted to public libraries because of their atmosphere, which transcends the boundaries of physical library space, so that visitors can feel the culture of the city where the library is located, and even find a sense of belonging to the city. The extant literature shows that users and visitors of public libraries generate shared emotions by sharing urban public spaces, and that public libraries are often seen as vibrant spaces for encounters and social interactions, where visitors perceive calm and relaxation, challenging the traditional view of public libraries as strictly quiet spaces [6]. The perceived value is reflected in the positive perception of public libraries by visitors. However, in the available literature, clues about public library visitors perceiving worthwhile in-depth research have not been found. The public library is not only a public space for dialogue, exchange, and tolerance of differences between different users, but also a place for visitors to enjoy urban culture in contact with culture, leisure, and sharing time and space. Especially at the rapid development of digital technology, public libraries are transforming from collection spaces to knowledge networks of digital services, facing the challenge of the diminishing function of their physical spaces to facilitate user encounters [7][8][9]. Some scholars believe that libraries have adapted to the changes in urban life, influenced people's changing cultural needs, reshaped the spatial resources of libraries, created new spatial hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 14 Published by IDEAS SPREAD resources, increased the flow of people and attracted visitors [10]. Public libraries attract visitors to not only play the diversified functions of the library, but also disseminate the cultural image of the city, and at the same time protect and utilize the cultural heritage status and resources of the public library. This is what public libraries are meant to attract users and visitors. In addition to the positive perception of the atmosphere of the public library, the architecture of the public library is also a very interesting object of perception for visitors. The cultural and creative atmosphere and diverse functions of public libraries are shaped by their architectural layout, lighting, acoustics, digital technologies, furniture, and plants, which benefit both general users and casual visitors [11][12]. The physical space of the library provides visitors with a physical carrier of perceived value, which has been elaborated by many scholars from different perspectives. For example, emphasizing the importance of the library's physical space for democratic inclusion [10], using the library as a gathering space for dialogue and thus fostering a sense of belonging [13], and reinforcing the importance of its physical safe space for social networks as a place of interaction and trust for informal gatherings [14][15]. Visitors will perceive the high social value of public libraries as vibrant public spaces in society, with concepts such as democracy, diversity, and personal security considered important dimensions of social value [16]. However, the existing literature has not fully elaborated on the specific dimensions of public library visitors' perceived value and the formation mechanism of perceived value of worthiness. This happens to be the focus of this research. For example, what are the expectations of visitors before visiting the New York Public Library? What expectations do the actual visit meet, and what are those expectations confirmed? What perceived values (e.g., emotional, functional, social, aesthetic) under expectations best contribute to the perception of "worthiness"? How is the visitor's "worth perceiving" formed in the process of expectation and experience confirmation? Therefore, this study takes the New York City Public Library as an example, takes visitors' online English reviews as the data source, and explores the multi-dimensional formation mechanism of visitors' perceived value of worthiness based on the perceived value theory and the expectation confirmation theory. The results of this study will provide inspiration and suggestions for exploring how public libraries can shape the experience of visitors, meet their diverse needs, and give full play to the urban cultural communication function of public libraries. 2. Theoretical Foundation 2.1 Perceived Value This research studies the multi-dimensional formation mechanism of public library visitors. Here, being worth perceiving is a perceived value, a cognitive evaluation. Early researchers applied perceived value to marketing, defining it as an overall assessment of a product's utility [17]. Later, some researchers applied it to the field of tourism, arguing that perceived value is a reliable concept for predicting tourist behavior [18][19], and is influenced by service quality, pricing, emotional connection, and social factors [20]. In a general sense, perceived value refers to a customer's perceived benefit, which is a multi-dimensional structure that contains the various components that make up perceived value. Perceived value is usually composed of four key dimensions: product or service quality, emotional response, cost, and social impact [21], and this dimension composition represents the view of most researchers. This is clearly a benefit to the perceived value of the visitor. Although there have been many elaborations on the dimensions of perceived value in the existing literature, there are still few studies on the dimensions of perceived value. Some scholars have studied the constituent factors of the perceived value of public libraries from the perspective of public library attractiveness, including seven aspects: environment and atmosphere, architecture and interior design, location and transportation, online popularity, library collections, cultural activities, personnel and services [22]. The perceived value of worthiness of visitors is not only satisfaction, but more importantly, the value-added evaluation of the perceived value elements of public libraries. 2.2 The Perception of Worthiness According to the concept of perceived value, perceived value refers to the fact that the perceived gain is greater than the perceived effort compared to the perceived gain, that is, the pure benefit perceived. Unlike perceived value, the perception of worthiness refers to the perceived benefit even though the perceived effort is greater than the perceived gain, and the perceived sacrifice is acceptable or even worthwhile. In this study, perceived benefits can refer to the advantages that a visit to a public library brings to visitors, or they can be service advantages, such as interactivity, customization, and personalization, while perceived sacrifices can refer to monetary or non- monetary costs [23], such as the visitor's time cost and psychological cost. hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 15 Published by IDEAS SPREAD Thus, the perception of worthiness can be seen as a weighted result determined by perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices. When the perceived sacrifice is constant, there is a positive relationship between the perceived benefit and the perceived value of the visitor, and when the perceived benefit is constant and the perceived sacrifice increases, the perceived value tends to decrease [24]. Therefore, if the perceived sacrifice does not increase, the perceived benefit increases. When visitors perceive the benefits that a public library can bring, such as time flexibility, free visits, personalized experience, high-quality service, content richness, and additional gains, their perceived value tends to be higher, or they may ignore their perceived sacrifices, such as time cost, physical cost, energy cost, or opportunity cost, to conclude that it is worth visiting, which is what the perception of worthiness means. 2.3 Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT) ECT was first used to analyze consumer post-purchase satisfaction and repurchase behavior [25], and this theory was later integrated into the expectation confirmation model (ECM), which has been widely used in the field of consumer behavior analysis and user behavior analysis in information systems [26]. ECM-based ECT is a cognitive model that explains the dynamic cognitive processes that individuals undergo when making continuity-related judgments [27]. When analyzing the driving factors of consumers' post-purchase behavior, ECM proposed two main drivers of performance confirmation and perceived usefulness [28], and believed that confirmation and perception affect the satisfaction evaluation after experience. Most of the research on the application of ECM in the existing literature focuses on the study of IT (Information technology) or IS (Information system) user behavior, which is used to understand the continuous behavior of users in different IT/IS environments, such as mobile health, mobile banking, e-learning, mobile applications, mobile Internet services, and web portal use [29]. After literature search, this paper found that there are few literatures that apply ECT to the behavior analysis of library visitors. In fact, the behavior of public library visitors is similar to that of IT/IS users, and it is expected that after being confirmed, it will also produce satisfactory reviews, which may also lead to continued visitor behavior or continuous word-of-mouth recommendation behavior. Thus, ECT conceptualizes the consumption process [30], arguing that the expectation confirmation mechanism is realized after the process. This provides a theoretical basis for explaining the formation mechanism of the perceived value of public library visitors. Visitors first create expectations about a visit to the New York Public Library, the experience that results from the visit, and the overall impression and perception are formed, which are then evaluated, and finally the visitor compares the perceived experience to the initial expectations. In this process sequence, the visitor's confirmation of the expectation leads to satisfaction, and when the expectation is high and confirmed, the satisfaction is high, and the visitor derives a worthwhile evaluation, which is reflected in the form of an online satisfaction review, which can be observed from the higher rating of the online review. At the same time, the visitor's satisfaction with the outcome also leads to an eWOM contribution behavior, which is an act of recommending other visitors to use it on an ongoing basis. The use of ECM can explain that the eWOM writing behavior of public library visitors is based on initial expectations and actual experience confirmations, and visitors express their satisfaction in the form of writing positive or negative reviews [31]. Throughout the visit, the visitor's perception runs through it. Visitors compare the perceived performance (experience) during the visit with their beliefs (expectations) about the service attributes of the public library prior to the visit to judge the extent to which the expectations have been met (confirmed). In this study, we will use visitors' online reviews as the data source to explore the multi-dimensional formation mechanism of visitors' perceived worth value by applying the grounded theory method to verify the applicability of the expectation confirmation theoretical model. 3. Methodology and Data Sources 3.1 Grounded Theory Method This theory emphasizes understanding the essence of the problem by analyzing the views and experiences of individuals. Although it originated in the sociological study of the medical field [32], it has been widely used in many other fields, including nursing, physical therapy, healthcare, anthropology, psychology, information systems, and software engineering [33], as well as education [34], management [35] and other social science fields [33]. It systematically collects and analyzes data to develop new theories about human behavior in all areas of society. At present, the research on perceptual experience applied to grounded theory has been extended to more research topics. For example, the perceived experience of gym users, the user experience of healthcare platforms, and the brand perception of home consumers [36]. The research on the perceived experience of visitors/tourists in the hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 16 Published by IDEAS SPREAD fields of culture, leisure and tourism has become the methodological reference of this study. For example, a study using grounded theory on the memorable experience of hotel guests [37]. In this study, Vonyant Tools and SPAAUA will be used to extract high-frequency words from visitors' comment texts, and determine the subject words to determine the range of dimensions worth perceiving. After that, manual or software tools will be used to open coding, axis coding, and selective coding the text data to determine the multi-dimensional formation mechanism that visitors are worthy of perceiving. Finally, under the framework of ECM, a multi-dimensional formation mechanism model of public library visitors worth perceiving is constructed. 3.2 Data Sources The New York Public Library (NYPL), founded in 1895, was selected as a case study site for public libraries because of its history, purpose, and cultural heritage characteristics. It has its origins in educational philanthropy and is the largest public library system in the United States, an important cultural venue and civic institution in New York City, and according to its website, its mission is that "the library is built on the ideal of free and open access to knowledge and opportunity for everyone, and is an important provider of free books, information, ideas, and education to all New Yorkers." Not only that, but the NYPL, with its collection of 54 million items, opens its doors to millions of visitors/visitors around the world every year (https://www.nypl.org/). A large number of users/visitors have accumulated a large amount of online review data, which provides a rich data resource for related research. In terms of data collection, TripAdvisor, the world's largest tourism and travel website, was selected as the source of online review data. Online reviews were chosen as research data because of their accessibility, completeness, and representativeness [38]. The number of visitor reviews of the NYPL on the Tripadvisor website is huge, and as user-generated content has been proven to be reliable and representative of literature research [39]. As of February 2025, there are more than 20,000 online reviews on TripAdvisor for NYPL, including reviews in a variety of languages, and the study selected the largest number of reviews in English (14,717) with an overall score of 4.6 out of 5. 99.27% of the reviews were positive and neutral in terms of 5 to 1 star: Excellent (9,638), Very good (4,179) and Average (793), while Poor (75) and Terrible (33) were negative. The star rating range of the online review data selected for this study is 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star reviews to capture perceived cues of worthwhile visits in neutral and positive reviews. Valid reviews after data cleansing became a small database for this study. In addition, this study ignores the time, place, and reviewer information of the online review data, and only emphasizes the open exploration of visitors' perspectives to better explain the phenomenon being studied [36], and attempts to derive the formation mechanism of visitors' worthwhile perception through a grounded theory approach, revealing why NYPL can get so many high ratings and what aspects it is worth visiting. 4. Data Analysis Process and Results 4.1 Identification of Perceptual Factors Identifying perceptual elements means subjecting to keyword analysis of visitor online review data prior to grounded theory coding. Use frequently used keywords to quickly discover which experiences are repeatedly mentioned by visitors, such as "beautiful," "historic," "inspiring," "crowded," "knowledgeable guides", etc. These keywords give an initial indication of what elements of the experience visitors consider "worthy" or "not worthy". Identifying perceptual elements can improve the systematization of grounded theory coding. Doing a round of keyword/subject word extraction before manual open coding can avoid missing high-frequency or important perceptual clues, which can make subsequent open coding more directional, and also help to discover potential feature categories. Finally, when selectively coding, subject heading frequency can also help determine which paths are more important in the process of forming "worth perceiving". Through data cleaning, nonsensical words and unified synonyms were removed, and keyword extraction was carried out in this study. Manually use a combination of software (Nvivo or Voyant Tools) to count high-frequency words. Sort by number of occurrences and list the top 30 high-frequency words. With the help of word cloud analysis, a word cloud map can be generated to visualize the main talking points of the visitor's online comments. The word cloud color shade or font size can reflect the frequency of words and help visualize core areas of interest. See Figure 1. hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 17 Published by IDEAS SPREAD a b Figure 1. Cloud map of online comments from visitors The excellent review word cloud (Figure a) highlights keywords such as "library", "building", "visit", "beautiful", "reading room", etc. The word cloud (Figure b) also highlights "library", "building", and "visit", but keywords such as "shop", "interesting", and "greatest" also appear more frequently, indicating that the details of the experience are slightly relaxed and casual. Figure 2 illustrates this as well. Figure 2. Comparison of high-frequency words Figure 2 is a bar chart of word frequency comparisons. From the figure, the two groups of reviews, extremely good reviews and very good reviews, which keywords are more prominent, "library", "building", "visit", etc. are very high frequency in both groups. For example, for "library", very good reviews paid more attention to "visit and building", and extremely good reviews paid more attention to "visit and building". Table 1 shows the preliminary categorization of subject headings, which can be combined into four topic groups, which are spatial aesthetic experience, learning experience, emotional experience, and social experience. Table 1. Preliminary theme classification Theme groups Example of theme words Spatial aesthetic experience Learning experience Emotional experience Social experience beautiful, stunning, architecture, corridor, hall, room. ceiling informative, reading, history, knowledge, exhibits, books emotional, inspiring, moving, excitement, passion, fondness sharing, friends, family, communication, queuing In Table 1, the classification of the four thematic clusters is based on the classification of the basic dimensions of perceived value (products, services, emotions and society). Space experience is the carrier of library experience, learning experience is the main function and service of the library, emotional experience is the emotional value of the library, and social experience is the outstanding social value of the library. The results of further analysis are shown in Table 2, and the perceptual performance is divided into three dimensions: tangible perception, intangible perception, and functional experience perception. On the basis of the hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 18 Published by IDEAS SPREAD classification of high-frequency words, subject words and topics, a worthy perceptual value composition table was preliminarily formed. Table 2. The composition of "worthy of perception" was initially proposed High-frequency keywords of tangible perception High-frequency keywords of intangible perception Functional experience keywords of perception building, architecture, reading room, ceilings, rooms, library, rose, time, shop, public, place, inside, original, people gorgeous, worth, visit, definitely, great, really, work, beautiful, amazing, stunning, great, history, experience, closed, rude, waste visit, free, tour, exhibit, books, new, reading, quick slow, peaceful, openness, orderly, important, convenient Combining Table 1 and Table 2, it is found that the product and service dimensions in the perceived value dimension, the spatial aesthetic experience and learning experience in the library experience, can be classified into tangible perception, the emotional and social dimensions in the perceived value dimension, and the emotional experience and social experience in the library experience. It can be classified as intangible perception. In addition, some experiential elements that assist perceived value can be classified as functional experiential perception. 4.2 Grounded Theory Data Analysis Step 1 is open coding which extracting concepts from the raw corpus and then categorizing the concepts to form categories. At this stage, the research work is to carefully read and analyze the original review text data, record and encode all relevant data according to their original context, and refine the preliminary perception nodes in order to discover concepts and categories and name them to indicate the content of the original materials. The purpose of open coding is to extract the content of the original text that contains the positive experience of the visitor, and disassemble it into independent sentences, and then extract the encoded elements of these sentences to form a preliminary concept. After many times of manual coding, revision, filtering, and refinement, a total of 150 basic concepts were extracted from the conceptualized results. Then, according to the semantic logical connection between the research topics and concepts of "Perception of Worthiness" in this paper, a total of 20 preliminary categories were refined. Examples of open coding are shown in Table 3. In Table 3, the conceptualization results show 17 of the 150 basic concepts, and the categorization results show 5 of the 20 preliminary categories. Table 3. The examples of open coding Original comment texts Conceptualization Categorization There are numerous wonderful bronze plates on the sidewalk with great quotes leading right up to the library worth reading. wonderful great Beautiful The current exhibit of their treasures is incredible and the smaller Virginia Wolff exhibit is fascinating. Well worth your time. The library inside is stunning. incredible fascinating stunning Amazing This beautiful landmark needs a visit. I imagine it would be a great place to hang out and people watch… You will be able to see many rooms not open to the public and get a sense of the history behind the building and library system. Ok, pose just go in the lobby, marvel at the fancy gilded age landmark a great place rooms history, building lobby, marvel Landmark Then go right in to the permanent treasures exhibit. Tiny books, richly illustrated Medieval bibles…just such riche. They offer free tours and they are totally worth the 2 or so hours. treasures exhibit riche free Precious we very much enjoyed our exploration of this…. Much better than I was expecting, but also a monument to learning. …… enjoyed learning …… Rewarding ….. Step 2 is axial coding which refining higher-level categories based on open coding. The specific work is to bring the 20 initial categories and 150 basic concepts formed in Step 1 back to the original review text, repeatedly sort out the logical connections between the initial concepts and categories, such as inclusion, juxtaposition, cause and effect, and explore the relevant connections to form the main categories. After repeated comparative analysis, the hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 19 Published by IDEAS SPREAD 20 preliminary categories were condensed into 3 dimensions and 6 main categories that visitors should perceive, including planning factors, experience factors and outcome factors, and 6 main categories including: expectations of visit, imagination, positive emotions, satisfaction, appreciation and reward. The axial coding process is shown in Table 4. Table 4. The main category formed by the main axis coding Main category The corresponding preliminary category Concept groups Planning factors: Expectations of the visit Imagination planning, want, thought, hope Incredible, unimaginable I thought, I guess, you would think, I wanted to visit, If you're coming here, great expectations, just hop in an incredibly beautiful building, incredible art, I do wonder how any of, a nice opportunity, don’t expect Experience factors: Positive emotions Satisfaction love, excitement, relaxation, friendly recommended, respectable, useful amazing, impressed, relaxed atmosphere, warm, exciting, stunning, glad, my favorite places, fun, admire, friendly recommended, interesting, well-worth, wonderful landmark perfect place, special exhibits, a great example, a surprise Outcome factors: Appreciation Reward enjoy, memorable, breakthrough knowledge, spirit, helpful, free magnificent building, cute presents, beautiful art, unique, exquisite architecture, impressive structure, spectacular free audio tour, incredible resources, so much history, inspired me, has treasures to explore, unusual, Step 3 is selective coding which generates a complete storyline and finds the logical relationship between the core categories based on the concepts and categories generated in the first two stages. Obviously, the storyline of this study is a clue worth perceiving for the visitor. According to the previous research, the six main categories in Table 4 come from subject headings and open coding, and the six main categories constitute the perceptual clues of the visitor's visit, that is, the story line that the NYPL visitor is worth perceiving. Visitors head to the NYPL with a sense of anticipation, which is neutral, even speculative and needs to be confirmed. During the visit, visitors experience a series of experiences, including spatial aesthetic experience, learning experience, emotional experience, and social experience, which are not only the experience of tangible physical places, but also the experience of intangible cultural atmosphere. Judging from the content of the comments, the positive emotions are greater than the negative emotions, with the help of various functional experiences, the visitors get a variety of satisfying experiences, thus forming the final appreciation and rewarding feelings, after the visit, the visitors will form a satisfactory evaluation of their own experience, and form a perception that it is worth visiting. The result of the selective coding process is the discovery of a storyline that is worth perceiving for the visitor consisting of 3 dimensions and 6 main categories. According to the constructivist and interpretivist principles of grounded theory, there is a certain structural relational structure in the main category's storyline (Fig. 3) that supports the perceived outcome that is worth visiting. Figure 3. The relationship structure diagram among the main categories hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 20 Published by IDEAS SPREAD 4.3 The Formation Mechanism of the Perception of Worthiness After completing the three-level coding analysis, the visitor's online review data was supplemented for re-encoding, and no new categories were found, so it was determined that the extraction of the above six main categories had met the principle of theoretical saturation. According to the expectation confirmation theory (ECT), the psychological and behavioral changes of visitors during their visit to the NYPL conform to the expectation-confirmation-satisfaction subject-path-object process. In this process, the 3 dimensions and 6 elements of the visitor's worthwhile perception match the framework of ECM, so that the multi-dimensional formation mechanism model of the visitor's worthwhile perception can be constructed. Figure 4 reveals the perceptual formation path of public library visitors. Figure 4. A visitors’ expectation confirmation model of perception of worthiness In this model in Figure 4, the visitor's imagination and expectation are the basis of worthwhile perception, positive emotional experience and satisfaction experience are the confirmation process, and appreciation and reward are satisfactory outcomes. The experiential outcome of appreciation and reward is very important and goes beyond the perceived benefit to form a perception of worthiness. 5. Conclusions and Implication Literature studies show that the existing literature studies involve the impact of public library visitors' perception and experience on satisfaction, but few literatures classify the perceived value of public library visitors. The findings of this study fill the gap in the research, reflect the theoretical significance of the study of worthiness perception, innovatively combine the perception value theory and the expectation confirmation theory, and emphasize the importance of the dual-path mechanism of perception and expectation confirmation to the visitors' perception of worthiness. The visitor's space-service-environment visit experience path is superimposed on the expectation confirmation path of perceived value improvement, satisfaction evaluation, and worthwhile visit. The study found that the elements of visitors' positive perception of experience include spatial aesthetic experience, learning experience, emotional experience, and social experience. These elements can be categorized into tangible perception and intangible perception, where the psychological characteristics of intangible perception are the basis and source of perception that is worth visiting. The study also found that the perception of worthiness is multi-dimensional, including: visit expectation, imagination, positive emotions, satisfaction, appreciation, and reward. On this basis, a visitors' expectation confirmation model of perception of worthiness was constructed to verify and expand the applicability of the expectation confirmation model. In addition, in practice, this study has enlightening significance for in-depth understanding of the psychological needs of visitors, giving full play to the diversified functions of public libraries, and attracting more visitors. hssr.ideasspread.org Humanities and Social Science Research Vol. 8, No. 4; 2025 21 Published by IDEAS SPREAD Based on visitor expectations, the predictability of public library practice and use can create a generally comfortable atmosphere for visitors, and this relaxed atmosphere of public libraries can play a key role in shaping people's cultural identity, their ability to belong to society. For public libraries with a long history, the huge cultural resources they contain, whether it is their exquisite architecture or cultural experience, will attract visitors to stop and become the basis for visitors to perceive. This provides enlightenment for how public libraries can shape the experience of visitors/users/visitors and meet their needs, so as to protect the city's cultural heritage, inherit the library culture, develop cultural tourism, and expand the city's influence. The practical implications of the findings are also that understanding visitor attitudes can help public libraries become more attractive. Although public libraries may not directly profit from visitors/visitors, the increasing influx of visitors/visitors generates induced consumption, which benefits shops, restaurants, and other businesses in the surrounding area [40], thereby generating revenue for the city. 6. Limitations and Further Research Although the results of this study have made research on the perception of public library visitors' worthiness, the research results have theoretical research significance and practical implications for the management of urban cultural venues. But there are limitations. The limited sample size of the study is limited to English reviews and positive reviews on TripAdvisor's website, and can be extended to review data from other websites and perceptual experience studies of other types of cultural sites (e.g., memorials, small libraries, private libraries) and comparative studies of reviews in different languages. The singularity of the research method only considers the qualitative study of the visitor review text by the grounded theory method, and the future research can consider the use of diversified research methods, such as on-site questionnaires, random interviews, and quantitative methods can be used to further deepen the research. Author Information Qianqian Fan, female, graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development of New York University; graduated with a master's degree in Journalism from Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. Research fields: media, cross-cultural economics, management, and cultural communication and development. Media specialist and law consultant. Email: qf296@nyu.edu References [1] Baker, D., & Ellis, L. (2025). New York Public Library, Encyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science (1st ed., pp. 241–249). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95689- 5.00045-6 [2] Schloffel-Armstrong, S., Baker, T., & Kearns, R. A. (2021). Geographies of the public library: Institutions, architectures, interactions. Geography Compass, 15(10), e12592. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12592 [3] Audunson, R., Aabø, S., et al. (2019). 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