Site Selection of the Public Libraries of Bojnourd City in Iran Using FAHP

The main purpose of this research is to locate the public libraries in Bojnourd based on the indicators of centrality, consistency and natural features of the earth. Identification of the major criteria in the site selection of the libraries, determination of the appropriate method for standardizing and weighting the criteria, and definition of appropriate scenarios for each of the selected area as based on their physical properties.

The present study's method is descriptive with a practical nature and a quantitative approach, and the survey method has been used to collect the data. In order to standardize the criteria maps, fuzzy functions were used; in to weigh the site selection criteria, the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) were utilized; and to combine the criteria, the weighted linear combination (WLC) were used. The Delphi method and paired comparison questionnaire were used to weight the criteria. The statistical population is composed of the experts related to the site selection of libraries, and 12 persons were selected as the sample using the targeted non-random sampling method.

The findings of the research indicated that in general, population density, accessibility, distance from existing libraries, proximity to educational centers and proximity to cultural and religious centers, respectively, have been the most important criteria in terms of the importance of the final weight of criteria. By combining the criteria considered in this study, 6 areas had a high spatial fitness for library space. In addition, given the standard per capita, Bojnurd city needs 3 new libraries which can be selected according to the policies considered, from the 6 areas with high spatial fitness.

Locating the appropriate areas for building a library can prevent additional costs before building a library. In addition, the correct site selection of libraries can have a significant impact on the efficiency of libraries. Considering the limited budget and the equipping policies of libraries, various strategies are adopted to lease a place for the library or to build a new library. Therefore, several plans and scenarios are presented in this research with an innovative approach within the selected areas according to the status of the existing uses of buildings and and the bulidings' quality. Furthermore, the most important issue that has received less attention thus far is the uncertainty in judgments. Therefore, the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method was used in order to solve this problem.