PurposeThe purpose of the paper is twofold: to provide an overview of the present situation at the Greek central public libraries and to identify strategic development areas in regard to education and training, social and economic development, e‐government, reading policy, cultural cohesion and identity.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted in January and February 2008 through extensive semi‐structured interviews with all the 29 Greek central public libraries.FindingsThe paper finds that a formal strategic plan is becoming necessary for the Greek central public libraries in order to understand themselves, redefine their policies and priorities, and further consider the needs and expectations of their users and of the society as a whole.Practical implicationsThis paper contributes to the discussion on the development of strategic planning aimed at the central public libraries in Greece and may assist in providing evidence for strategic planning in a national and/or in an institutional level.Originality/valueIt is one of the very few studies in Greece providing empirical evidence for the strategic planning and management of the central public libraries.

Purpose -Changing times call for a reading policy which should be high on the list of priorities of academic libraries. This paper aims to probe the reading behavioural patterns and perception of the students of the Ionian University. Design/methodology/approach -An empirical study was conducted from April to June 2007, through the development of a structured questionnaire equally distributed to a stratified sample of 335 undergraduate students from all the departments of the Ionian University. Findings -The undergraduate students of the Ionian University show reading behaviours that are different from the general population. Academic libraries can form specific policies regarding the reading habits and behaviour of the undergraduate students in terms of compulsory reading and leisure reading. Practical implications -Effective and creative planning of reading policy in academic libraries should be based on students' reading behavioural patterns. Originality/value -Results for the reading patterns for students of academic institutions in Greece have not been available in the past. Availability of such results documented in this paper may provide a starting-point for the development of academic libraries' reading policy concerning the reading behaviour of students.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss Google visibility of five large STM publishers (Elsevier, Emerald Publishing, Springer, Taylor & Francis and John Wiley & Sons) with the aim to focus on and investigate various upcoming current issues and challenges of the publishing industry regarding discoverability, promotion strategies, competition, information-seeking behavior and the impact of new information technologies on scholarly information. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on data retrieved through two commercial online tools specialized in retrieving and saving the data of the domain's visibility in search engines: SEMrush (“SEMrush – Online Visibility Management Platform”) and Ahrefs (“Ahrefs – SEO Tools & Resources To Grow Your Search Traffic”). All data gathering took place between April 15 and the May 29, 2019. Findings The study exhibits the significance of Google visibility in the STM publishing industry taking into consideration current issues and challenges of the publishing activity. Originality/value This is a “new” trend, certainly of great significance in the publishing industry. The research is conducted in this paper and the theoretical background will be offered to the study of this issue.