Editorial

Dear Colleagues, JIIM is an international, multidisciplinary, blind, peer-reviewed, open-access electronic journal that publishes research on all aspects of Information Science and Integrated Information Management. JIIM is the official journal of the Department of Archival, Library & Information Studies, University of West Attica (UNIWA), and it is available through the Greek National Documentation Centre (EKT) ePublishing platform for electronic journals: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/jiim. The current issue would like to announce the call for abstracts for the LibEdu.2026 – Education & Libraries conference, which will be held by the Department of Archives, Library Science and Information Systems (ALIS), University of West Attica (UNIWA), Athens, Greece, on December 11 and 12, 2026, at the “Periklis Ν. Lytras” auditorium of UNIWA. We look forward to receiving your contributions for presentation or workshops. A surprise letter to the editor is written by a young Greek high school student, who describes her daydream school library. In her passionate words, she is asking for an engaging environment for academic and scholarly study, as well as for free voluntary reading (FVR), where students meet the fantastic heroes of their dreams, meet each other, and share their book-reading experiences. Can this dream materialize? Three original research papers are included in this issue, the first of 2026. The first one, hand in hand with the letter to the editor, describes the school library of the Experimental School of the University of Athens between 1929 and 1939. With nearly a century from this period to date, the common student need for free voluntary book reading, not only for study, is noted that “…from the very first year of the school’s operation in 1929, students demonstrated a spontaneous desire to acquire extracurricular books…” The active involvement of past students of the Experimental School of the University of Athens in their library includes a citizen science project in which students perform librarianship tasks. The second paper derives from “Information Management in Libraries, Archives, Museums" Master Student Program of the Department of Archival, Library & Information Studies, University of West Attica (UNIWA). It is about the potential use of popular generative artificial intelligence models, specifically ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), and Claude (Anthropic), in retrieving metadata information about cultural heritage objects. The third paper comes from far away, Baku, Azerbaijan, and it is about Web3 technologies applied in sports for fans and supporters. The author has been actively involved in this business, but is also promoting something different from soccer or basketball players: chess grandmasters. The regulatory and consumer protection framework is described. We welcome proposals for Special Issues, which should be emailed to Associate Professor Dimitrios Kouis ([email protected]) or Assistant Professor Artemis Chaleplioglou ([email protected]). We expect your contributions, active support, comments, and suggestions for improvement. The JIIM Editorial Team wishes all of you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. Assistant Professor - Editor Artemis Chaleplioglou Department of Archival, Library and Information Studies University of West Attica