New Technologies in Libraries: An Overview of Practices and Prospects for Implementation

The research is aimed at studying the use of new technologies in the services of Russian and foreign libraries. The areas of using artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in library practice are considered, and the main trends in its application to work are identified. The author comes to the conclusion that the automation of internal processes is already widely used in library activities, in particular in Russian libraries: collecting information without the direct participation of an employee, filling electronic catalogs, resource allocation, remote access. Less common are the development of online virtual services (virtual assistant, bot) and the use of mobile applications. AI-based practices such as data mining, analysis of query history and user behavior, voice search, personalized selections and recommendations are much less common. Among the conditions hindering the rapid implementation of technologies using AI in libraries, in addition to the economic and technical components, there continues to be the need for manual control of AI outputs when recognizing texts, classifying materials or generating recommendations. The author presents some results of queries in popular neural networks (DeepSeek, Mistral, ChatGPT, etc.) and shows errors and hallucinations in the answers, which do not allow one to fully rely on these systems in bibliographic searches. Technology opens up enormous opportunities for libraries to automate, improve and personalize services, but the best option is to integrate AI gradually. It requires caution, constant monitoring and the participation of specialists. This will maximize the benefits of technology and minimize risks.