This article examines the evolution of libraries over the centuries, from information organization in the ancient Library of Alexandria and the Medieval manuscript catalogs, through the printing revolution and Dewey Decimal Classification, to the technological transformations of the 20-th century. e. g. microfilming, MARC system, and the OCLC Consortium. With the advent of the digital revolution, libraries have adopted integrated management systems and electronic catalogs and begun offering online services, which offers wider access to information though mounts new challenges related to copyright and digital collection management.  In the Arab world, the digital initiatives and efforts in the countries such as the UAE, Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria are aimed at transformation of children's libraries into intelligent interactive platforms powered by modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Despite the challenges related to digital inequality and infrastructure, these initiatives stand out as innovative models for improving children's literacy and skills development. The article highlights that the integration of technology into libraries is a strategic imperative to keep pace with global developments while ensuring equitable and inclusive access for all children, enhancing the role of libraries as knowledge custodians and interactive learning platforms in the future.

The author reviews the Sixth Conference “The Green Libraries – Libraries of the Future” held within the framework of the Ninth World Professional Conference “The Book. Culture. Education. Innovations” (Gelendzhik-2025”) on June 12, 2025. The theme of the year was” “Information for sustainable development. New and old approaches in the Decade of Science and Technologies”. Two sessions took place: “Information for sustainable development” and “Library ecological movement: Visible prospects”. In total, 9 papers were presented. The Conference organizers see sustainable development principles and goals promotion as one of the libraries’ missions, and implementation of ecological targeting logics as a fundamental task for which the libraries have resources and capability. In this context, to identify the prospects for their sustainable development work, the Conference participants discussed motivation of the libraries, practical experience of implementing thoughtful approaches toward natural resources in libraries and users engagement, facilitation of SDG literature search, including navigation instruments combined with UDC SRSTI (GRNTI), and LBC rubricators. 

The participants confirmed that there was the background for sustainable development standard for the Russian libraries within the framework of “The Strategy for Librarianship Development in the Russian Federation up to the year 2030”.  The standard would facilitate environmental targeting in the libraries; in particular, the author cites the findings of the study that specifies the characteristics of “green libraries” which, in its turn, would support development of relevant standard of Russian “green libraries”. The author emphasizes that while the library ecological movement in Russia is not at its highest point, it follows the global trends. 

Science-society communication is a significant vector of activities, in particular for the libraries of various statuses that used to gather people from the broad spectrum of society. These days, due to TV, radio and Internet, this library role has become less evident and recognized. The authors suggest the hypothesis that promotion of scientific knowledge to population depends largely on directors and heads of public and municipal libraries. The study goal was to test the hypothesis through the survey of library heads and to analyze their attitude towards scientific knowledge popularization. According to the survey findings, the majority of library heads and directors agrees that the libraries must propagate knowledge, however these work is hindered by many factors: lacking specialists, public interest in science, standards and instructions from above, and lacking resources of the very libraries. 

In the paper Part 2, the authors introduce the findings of the analysis of ecological bibliography landscape in Donetsk People’s Republic (Donetsk Region before 2014). The data for 2000–2024 were processed for the study. The paper goal is to generalize the bibliographic data pool through the statistical approach of comprehensive correlation of the publications with several subject headings. The method has proved its effectiveness as the content of a single published information source enables to solve several ecological tasks at once or to explore into several problems in a verified publication. For the first time, through the correlation analysis and principal component analysis, the distribution of the number of publications across the subject headings for the 25-year period was explored. The thermal map of heading profiles pairwise correlation and hierarchical clustering dendrogram, empirical distribution histograms and smoothed distribution density plots for item value (number of publications under one heading by year) were obtained. These representations demonstrate significant characteristics of individual subject headings and time periods within the given data sets, which, in its turn, enables to suggest hypotheses on consistency in the character of ecological publications  for the period under examination. The key suggestion is that the subject scope  of the studies and corresponding publications in ecology of certain periods reflects the social demands to researchers in various areas engaged in diagnostics, quantifications, modeling, monitoring, control and discussion of significant ecological problems of Donbass. The quantitative data (further analysis and study of their content) on publications on the industrial region’s ecology are used as didactical support  of learning within the academic program “Ecology and nature management”. 

The problem-setting dilogy comprises the analysis of the library as  a cyberphysical system. The purpose is to analyze the library objects and functions as related to evolving generative artificial intelligence (AI). Based on the terminological analysis of the terms “cyberphysical system” (CPS), “virtual librarian”, and “digital twin librarian (DTL)”, the conceptual model of the library as the CPS is introduced. Based on the analysis of AI systems and AI agents implementation experience, the author defines the DTL priority functions and offers its conceptual model.

Opposed to the universal model, the multiagent trajectory is proposed. The following theoretical methods were applied: а) concept terminological analysis; b) document analysis used to characterize the level of prior studies and specific character of cyberphysical modelling in library information services; and c) AI systems and  AI agents typological analysis to reveal the prospects for their utilization as digital twins in the library practice. The author highlights the contradiction between  absent unified approach toward DTL concept and the demand for this term unambiguous interpretation shared by the professional library community as a whole. The author formulates the problem of the differences in existing interpretations of the outcome of library and information activity virtualization and offers his own interpretation of the library as a cyberphysical system.

The paper reviews the recently published monograph “Current Trends in the Development of Digitalization of Society: Scientific, Educational, Library and Information Environment” by Professor Ya. L. Shrayberg. The extensive covering of modern digital technologies within a single book enables the authors to effectively identify and summarize their combined impact on various aspects of contemporary living environment. The analysis of current achievements is seamlessly integrated into a historical background making it possible not only to trace the emergence of one or another technology, but also to project their development in the nearest future. Emphasis is placed on informatization of research and education, as well as of the important role of libraries which possess all the necessary competencies for managing modern knowledge in the digital environment.

Evaluation of the quality of printed book has been relevant to every subject in the book market, in particular, readers and library collection developers. The situation in the Russian book publishing market and technological revolution have aggravated the negative trends in accessibility of socially important publications, in particular, the sci-tech literature which circulation has been continuously decreasing. The authors introduce the concept of multistage evaluation of editing prepress preparation, design and graphic art quality, which enables relevant assessment of sci-tech book publications and, on the whole, socially important publications. Among the criteria are: system integrity of form and content, i. e. author’s work, its apparatus, art graphic, illustration, design and their conformity with intended end-use and targeted reader audience.