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The third industrial revolution, fueled by the combined powers of information technology, is changing not only the way we work but also our perceptions, definitions and insights into the world. Society will emerge from the third industrial revolution as a global village. Technology and information providers will empower people to find, retrieve, share and use data in ways that enrich their lives.

Currently, China’s economy is in the critical phase of transforming economic development patterns and replacing old growth drivers with new ones. Whether it can successfully overcome the “middle-income trap” has become a significant issue attracting wide attention.

Driven by underlying digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data, the fourth industrial revolution featuring the booming digital economy has provided significant opportunities for China’s economy to “overtake” and overcome the “middle-income trap”. The transformation of economic development pattern, the optimization of industrial structure, and the change of growth drivers, brought by the deep integration of digital and real economies are the keys to leaping over the “middle-income trap”.

From the supply side, the digital economy can improve the quality and efficiency of the supply side and promote the supply-side structural reform and economic growth from the following three aspects: First, promote the quality, efficiency and diversification of the supply system; second, promote networking, opening-up and synergy in the innovation system and third, promote the socialization, modularization and flexibility of production pattern. From the demand side, the digital economy can boost the new drivers of the “troika” of economic growth consisting of consumption, exports and investment by changing the market investment direction, promoting consumption upgrade and fostering export strengths. However, once these two attributes interact with each other, especially when data is combined with capital, the most adhesive factor in the market economy, a series of new social relations will then be produced based on the technical attribute, resulting in significant adjustments in social relations, involving both positive and negative externalities.

To overcome the “middle-income trap”, it is necessary to adapt to the laws of economic evolution and promote a fundamental change in economic growth drivers; boost the high-quality development of the digital economy by strengthening the support role of data in the digital economy; and accelerate digital industrialization and industrial digitalization to realize the integration of digital and real economies.

In this paper, we refer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2016, where the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) was coined by Klaus Schwab, with the reference that it would be building on “the Third, the digital revolution” and would be “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”. While acknowledging that the 4IR will impact on everything, everywhere, including research and libraries, we conceptualize 4IR, and we compare current academic library services/trends in South Africa with 4IR requirements, through the analysis of 26 public university library websites.

Besides conceptualization of 4IR, a content analysis of websites of 26 public universities’ libraries in South Africa was achieved followed up with verification of the data by respective libraries through a preliminary research report circulated to them by email. 23 areas were identified as the trends in academic libraries, which included free Wi-Fi in the libraries; 24/7 study areas and access to library resources on and off campus; research commons; makerspace; borrowing ICTs (e.g. laptops); e-resources; e-catalogues; research data services (RDS; RDM, IR); open scholarship; information literacy and reference/bibliographic tools, library as a publisher, among others. Data obtained were captured in Excel and analyzed by the research questions.

The 4IR concept does not occur often in literature, in relation to academic libraries, but it is implied. The findings show that the libraries are responding well to the revolution through their services, with remarkable innovation and creativity on display. There was a 64% presence of the analyzed trends/services in the libraries, with emerging trends/services such as library as a publisher (4%), robotics/AI (4%), makerspace (8%), RDS (27%), borrowing of ICTs/devices (19%) and user experience (19%) scoring low, while information literacy and digital scholarship (e.g. IR) (88%), e-catalogue and e-resources (92%), group study area (85%) and off campus access (77%) scoring above 75%. The scatter of the trends/services among the university libraries is noted for knowledge sharing of best practice.

In order to improve accordance with trends, academic libraries have to be better resourced, accessed and used, as well as improve web visibility. The study expects library services to be responsive, resourced and accessible anytime and anywhere, and it provides a conceptual framework and a benchmark for further research and exploration in the country, region and perhaps elsewhere.

The study can be used for benchmarking current and future academic library services in Africa. The conceptual framework provides an agenda for theoretical discussions and deliberations.

The trends, framework and 4IR representations in the study can inform theory and practice in LIS, particularly in Africa.

Linking 4IR to current and future library services provides a tool for academic libraries services benchmarking and development and provides a conceptual framework for theoretical and practical debates and implementation. The study is quite current and appropriate for the ongoing discussions of 4IR implications to academic libraries.

Despite the fact that labels such as “smart industry” and “industry 4.0” (terms used to denote the fourth industrial revolution) have become popular topics within academia and in practice, their meaning remains an issue of concern. It’s a concern that has drawn the attention of various authors. It is a struggle we engaged in as well – specifically regarding the Dutch “smart industry” label – to aid our aim of assessing whether our call to combine forces can be extended beyond industry 4.0 and industrie 4.0. We provide here initial indications of whether there is more unity in meaning and, thus, reasons to take steps toward combining labels. By means of 20 interviews with Dutch smart industry experts, a representation of smart industry was obtained as understood in the Netherlands. Based on this representation, we examined the extent of overlap between the Dutch “smart industry” label and the general term “fourth industrial revolution” as well as the “industry 4.0” label as defined by various scholars. Our findings showed that smart industry in the Netherlands does not match the denotation of an industrial revolution. Several signals were, however, detected indicating that the content observed under the Dutch smart industry label overlaps with what is being presented under the label industry 4.0. These results reveal that there is indeed more unity in meaning between the various labels that exist and, as such, strengthens our call to combine forces.

In order to explore the impact of the recent wave of a technological revolution on global culture and society, the purpose of this paper is to re-read the two most outstanding dystopian novels of the mid-twentieth century. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley observe and anticipate technological development in relation to questions of human nature and culture, individual identity and close relationships, matters of care, privacy and private life. The totalitarian regimes both authors experienced in their time have disappeared, yet today the two fields of high technology that fueled their fantasy are reaching levels of development to surpass Orwell’s and Huxley’s daunting visions.

This paper approaches the recent innovations in the information and communication technology as well as the upsurge of life sciences and bio-technology from a philosophical perspective, considering their impact on the social structure (division of labor, distribution of wealth) as well as on the symbolic order of advanced industrial societies (the sign and the body, life and death).

Taking up Michel Foucault’s distinction between ancient sovereign rule and modern biopolitics, the author suggests discerning a third stage of domination: bio economics plus culture industries. In contrast to the two previous forms of domination, this new regime does not endeavor to suppress but to foster and unleash life. Therefore, it instigates less resistance and opposition but meets with more approval and compliance. Domination in this neoliberal-libertarian guise may prove not less dangerous than the former totalitarian variant. It forces the author to re-think ways of resistance and critique.

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the analysis of care, society and democracy.

Industrial revolutions have been induced by technological advances, but fundamentally changed business and society. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the fourth industrial revolution (I4.0) and derive guidelines for business strategy, it is, therefore, necessary to explore it as a multi-facet phenomenon. Most literature on I4.0, however, takes up a predominantly technical view. This paper aims to report on a project discussing a holistic view on I4.0 and its implications, covering technology, business, society and people.

Two consecutive group discussions in form of academic world cafés have been conducted. The first workshop gathered multi-disciplinary experts from academia, whose results were further validated in a subsequent workshop including industry representatives. A voting procedure was used to capture participants perspectives.

The paper develops a holistic I4.0 vision, focusing on five core technologies, their business potential, societal requests and people implications. Based on the model a checklist has been developed, which firms can use a tool to analyze their firm’s situation and draft their industry 4.0 business strategy.

Rather than focusing on technology alone – which by itself is unlikely to make up for a revolution – this research integrates the entire system. In this way, a tool-set for strategy design results.

The importance of the retail sector to the Malaysian economy especially in this volatile environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic would be more prominent. The retail sector under the current Industry Revolution 4.0 would be prioritized to align with the challenges of future growth for retail sales and employment. In the Industry 4.0 environment, retail companies must put enough resources in embracing the major changes for maintaining their competitive advantages. This includes adapting and developing backend systems, creating effective storage and distribution networks that make products available to consumers on any time basis, and offering maximum flexibility in the last-mile delivery options. Retail companies will need to evaluate the importance of innovative ideas such as crowdsourced distribution networks, radio-frequency identification (RFID), automated locator that shift the look of logistics when evaluating newer, nimbler distribution models, and multichannel marketing that consist of online and offline customer interface.

The world is moving toward a new industrial revolution period where digital technology has achieved unprecedented developments. The industrial revolution (IR) is a subcategory of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). This paper aims to discuss the 4IR technologies from the perspective of librarians. It investigates the perceptions of librarians about the 4IR.

The study was conducted in the Malaysian academic libraries. A set of eight open-ended questions were designed to investigate the challenges, barriers and business case to encompass the art of thinking skills in information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT). The participants were a group of librarians' working in the 4IR with a glimpse of the transformation toward smart libraries. Four librarians' answered the blurred line and fill the gap between life as a librarian and technology as the cutting edge of industry development.

The findings of this study on the 4IR as a global business–library industry exposed that the technological advancements and development process of information system (IS) has incorporated the most advanced and innovative technologies which have influenced librarians' perceptions, thinking skill and mindset. This study proposes IS enablers and librarians to take measures to cope with the 4IR.

This study is unique in the sense that it is the foremost research on 4IR from the perspective of Malaysian librarians'.

Industry 5.0 provides significant social, environmental and economic benefits over previous industrial revolutions. However, research in the field of industry 5.0 is still at a very nascent stage. Little is known about research trends in the field and its applications in specific sectors as construction which have relatively low sustainability index. Hence, this study aims to explore research trends in industry 5.0 and its applications in the construction industry.

The study adopted a bibliometric analysis with the use of the vosviewer. The main search words used in the study were “Industry 5.0”, “Society 5.0” AND “Fifth Industrial Revolution”. Initial extracted papers with these keywords were 1036. After refining based on language, document type, key words and timeframe, a total of 188 papers were found suitable for the analysis.

The most impactful research on Industry 5.0 to date was from the United States, Australia and Sweden while the journal sustainability was found to be the highest document source on Industry 5.0. The application areas of industry 5.0 in the construction industry include health and safety, collaborative working, waste management, measurement of environmental features (indoor air quality, atmospheric pressure, noise, humidity and temperature) and forecasting of environmental, social or financial outcomes.

The study used review based papers which form the bulk of the existing research on industry 5.0. This limits understanding of the practical applications, benefits and challenges associated with the use of industry 5.0.

This work contributes to the theory and practice of industry 5.0 by providing baseline data for future research directions on industry 5.0. The work specifically highlights the application areas of industry 5.0 in the construction industry and also indicates the need for questionnaire, interviews or case study based research to enhance understanding of the practical applications of industry 5.0.