Seat selection behavior in the reading room of Gowa Public Library, Indonesia

The Gowa Public Library is unique and child-friendly in design, highlighting a contemporary architectural style with geometric shapes, minimalist lines and utilization of natural lighting. Library visitors choose to sit at the edge of the room, adjacent to the bookshelves. Adult visitors use Children Reading Room, designed for children to read and study, for their own reading, studying, and do assignment. This study aims to explain visitors’ behavior in choosing seats in the reading room of the Gowa Public Library, employing a qualitative approach grounded in the pragmatism paradigm. The data collection techniques are observation, structured and unstructured interviews and documentation of library visitor activities. The analysis technique used are place-centered mapping, person-centered mapping and physical traces. This method focuses on observing visitors in choosing a seat in the library. The results show that Main Reading Room is a popular room because it has a unique design. The behavior of visitors in choosing where to sit varies based on the time of visit. Three patterns of behavior are found, which are analyzed from the organization of the space and the traces left by library visitors.