| dc.description.abstract | Academic libraries are fulfilling a special role in
higher education institutes. It is one of the most important,
memorable and highly functional spaces for campus
communities. Conceptually, libraries are considered as the
brains of universities. However, the rapid physical
developments and growing student population of universities
are demanding the well-designed and highly functional spaces
within universities including libraries. Thus, it is important to
know the perceptions of main stakeholders towards the spaces
they used in campuses. Therefore, this study is predominantly
focused to research the students’ perceptions of university
library spaces to incorporate in designer guidelines which can
be used in practicing the library architecture in Sri Lanka.
Thus, the methodology was adopted to find students’
perceptions using a quantitative analysis. The structured
questionnaire was circulated among the sample of 150
university students who use the library spaces representing
the selected three case studies. Using IBM SPSS software,
collected data were evaluated via the reliability tests, the
mean value tests and the correlation tests. The issues
pertaining with the case studies were prioritized on their
levels of impact and the degree of negligence levels in common
ground. The list of drawbacks that should be addressed,
design recommendations and solutions for identified problems
were provided individually to uplift the standards of all three
case studies. Pierson correlations tests were also used to
determine the relationship between demographic data and
measured parameters. Finally, a check-list was presented to
incorporate in designer guidelines to ensure the quality of
academic library spaces | en_US |
