Culture-Tourism Integration in Public Libraries: Social Media Text Mining Analysis on Chinese Metropolitan Libraries

Authors: Honglian Zhang, Ziyan Ai, Zerong Xie, Dickson K. W. Chiu, Samuel Ping-Man Choi

Background: Rich in cultural resources, public libraries have always fulfilled the public need for knowledge and cultural involvement. Libraries have evolved into an essential part of this trend as tourism moves towards cultural experiences since they offer varied services and draw guests as sites of cultural travel.

Objective: With a focus on identifying strengths and challenges as well as strategic insights for library managers, this study investigates user viewpoints on the integration of culture and tourism in Chinese public libraries via social media comments.

Methodology: Examining user comments from the platform Dianping using the LDA model, time series analysis, high-frequency word analysis, sentiment analysis, and semantic network analysis.

Results: With knowledge of public libraries’ strengths and shortcomings, findings show growing user attention to cultural tourism aspects. Strategic suggestions are presented to improve libraries’ functions as cultural hubs, so bridging the research gap in Asian public libraries.