The library network in the former Yugoslavia slowly began to develop after 1945. Each of six republics passed its own laws relating to the culture, science and education sectors, and the Slovene language became one of the official languages; Slovenia also developed its own publishing sector and established its own national library. The national libraries of the various republics were united under the Yugoslav National Library Association. They preserved and interchanged all materials printed in Yugoslavia prior to 1991 (the first law on legal deposit was passed as early as 1921 within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes). There were never any restrictions on the purchase of foreign literature, and although the financial means for this purpose were quite limited, by 1980 Slovene libraries held around 10,000 foreign periodical titles.

The preparatory phase in the automated processing of library holdings began in the early 1980s, when the National Libraries of the former Yugoslavia decided that the new system should be based on a shared catalogue. The system was implemented in 1987 with software support developed by the Institute of Information Sciences (IZUM) Library, which also hosted the system. With the exception of the Croatian National Library and some university libraries, all of the national libraries of the former Yugoslav state used the COBISS - Slovene Virtual Library system (COBISS stands for Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services). Successfully integrating the four different languages and the two different scripts (Latin and Cyrillic) used within the six Yugoslav nations into a unified system proved quite a challenge. The national bibliographic format COMARC was developed on the basis of the international format UNIMARC. The shared cataloguing system at Yugoslav level continued in operation until 1991. However, with the outbreak of war in Yugoslav territory, co-operation ceased. Since IZUM was based in Slovenia, Slovene libraries were able to continue using this system after the demise of the Yugoslav federation. Today some 200 Slovene libraries of all types utilise the COBISS - Slovene Virtual Library system and the database incorporates some two million bibliographic records.

Among the strategic aims of the National Cultural Programme 2004-2007 (see Government Cultural Policy Section) was a transformation of libraries into cultural information centres, with information activity in culture being defined as a priority task of cultural policy in line with the 'Strategy of the Republic of Slovenia in the Information Society'. The aim was to improve accessibility to culture, increase the accessibility of comprehensive information about culture and provide higher-quality professional and scientific evaluation of culture. The library network will play an important role here. The majority of public and school libraries already function as so-called ‘E-points’, which are very popular and important for people living in smaller towns and villages.