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The library community is considerably active in environmental issues, but the body of scientific and professional literature in the library and information science (LIS) related to environmental issues is growing slowly. The author attempts to indicate the reasons for the still-low interest in the issue of green libraries on a global scale by pointing to barriers in the development of the green libraries concept in both theoretical and practical dimensions.

The desk research method was used in this study.

Barriers to the development of the green libraries concept include an ambiguous definition of green libraries, a lack of guidelines for green libraries, a lack of criteria for evaluating green libraries, insufficient dissemination of the essence and goals of environmental education, a lack of developed tools for monitoring progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an environmental aspect at a national level and insufficient integration of environmental topics in LIS curricula at the higher-education level.

Although, since the 1990s, the body of literature on sustainable development from an environmental perspective has been growing, LIS researchers' activities do not reflect the importance of this issue. The originality of the article lies in the indication of the reasons for the still-low interest in environmental issues in LIS literature. To date, this issue has not been discussed in the literature.

The objective of the article is to determine the numerical increase in publications on green libraries and the dynamics of its development as well as to determine the thematic structure of the scientific literature in the field of green libraries and its changes as a representation of research in this area.

The research material consisted of publications on green libraries published between 1991 and 2020, indexed in the Web of Science database. The bibliometric method was used to determine the numerical increase in publications on green libraries and the dynamics of its development. In order to characterize the thematic structure of publications representing research in this area, content analysis was performed.

Quantitative analysis of the literature on green libraries has shown that this is a new area of research not explored with constant intensity. The time of publishing materials on green libraries can be divided into two periods: the so-called period of first publications between 1991 and 2006, and the period between 2007 and 2020, when the number of publications increased relatively systematically. The content analysis confirmed the hypothesis that the most frequent theme is the issue of a green building and its management. It showed that the period after 2010 is the time of building a theoretical framework for a new research field, i.e. green libraries.

The main value of the article is the performance of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the scientific literature indexed in the Web of Science devoted to green libraries, from the moment of the first publications to the present day. The codebook developed for the needs of content analysis can constitute the basis for the development of criteria for the evaluation of green libraries and guidelines for their organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the concepts related to environmental education in the context of sustainable development, to indicate the links between them as well as to identify and organize elements of library activities that have the potential to implement environmental education.

The method of analysis and criticism of scientific and professional literature and research reports was used. The multiple case study method was also used.

An analysis of literature and multiple case studies confirms the assumption that sustainable development is now a new paradigm of librarianship. Among the goals of sustainable development are environmental goals, which in libraries can be achieved through environmental education. A broad approach to environmental education has been proposed, which is implemented not only by using library services but also by building green collections, contacts with environmentally involved librarians, using ecological library infrastructure, observing sustainable management methods in libraries, cooperation between the library and the external environment in terms of the natural environment.

An analysis of 20 case studies was carried out regarding the implementation of pro-environmental measures in libraries. Examination of a larger number of case studies would probably give a more complete picture of this area of activity in libraries. The next stage of research should be the development of standards/guidelines in the field of environmental education in libraries, and then the development of methods and techniques for assessing the quality of library activities in this area and methods for assessing the impact of libraries on society and the environment in the field of environmental education.

The paper indicates – based on case study analyses – those library elements that have potential in the field of environmental education. They were ordered in categories that were assigned to the three main components of a library: people, artefacts and processes.

Sustainable development is a new library paradigm. The paper focuses on the environmental area, specifically environmental education. It has been recognized that libraries have considerable potential for environmental education and should be seen as socially responsible organizations that take responsibility for the impact of their decisions and actions on society and the environment.

The paper explains the basic concepts of environmental education and the relationships between them. It defines the area of environmental education in libraries in terms of library activity elements that can be used to organize them according to the three main components of a library, which are people, artefacts and processes. The paper also indicates that sustainable development should be treated as a new paradigm of librarianship, and environmental education as a new research field of library and information science.