Public Libraries Section

Country Report: Netherlands

2002

Reform of the Dutch Library system

In December 2001, the Dutch government signed an agreement with the powerful national association of Dutch municipalities (VNG) and the organisation of the regional authorities (provinces/IPO) to work together to renew the public library system in the Netherlands. In last year's country report, I described the background to this operation.

In the meantime, a working group of 5 people has been established, appointed by the government and nominated by the three undersigning parties and the association of public libraries, the NBLC. The government provided a small amount of money and staff to get things underway. Likewise the government has provided 20 million Euro over 4 years to support the local communities and the provincial authorities in their efforts.

According to recent estimates, the total operation will cost 240 million euros over the next few years and thereafter an extra 150 million per year to maintain the new system (i.e. an increase of just over 10 percent of the annual budget for public libraries). More money is therefore required, than the amounts given above. The success of the operation depends on the willingness of state, provinces and local communities to make a joint effort to find the money. At each level, the library world lobbies politicians and the public for the support it so badly needs. It is clear that the economic recession is not helping the cause. In our honest opinion, the case is strong and becomes even stronger in the difficult times many citizens have to endure. The offer of unhindered access to information, effective life long learning and participating in our cultural heritage and development, is of the utmost importance.

Internet

Since 2000 all Dutch public libraries and library branches have been connected to the internet. The NBLC introduced the concept "Bibliotheek.nl" to provide an umbrella to the individual activities of libraries. A spot on the web, where all kinds of information (reference and full text) can be found with special emphasis on culture, reading and literature. Al@din, the Dutch 'Ask your librarian' service is available by e-mail and online, and has been developed in close co-operation with the local libraries. From next year, it will be integrated into Bibliotheek.nl. All the big city libraries will co-operate in the back office service of this system.

In May, Literatuurplein.nl was launched on the net: the only non-commercial, informative Dutch book site on the internet. There is still a lot to be done, but the initiative has enough potential to reach a large audience and it emphasis our co-operation with publishers and booksellers.

Public libraries have agreed to join forces on a programme to procure and buy content (licenses). Some of these contracts will replace less favourable individual contracts and some introduce new content to the libraries (consumer information and tests). The programme consists of two parts:

• a basic collection, which is purchased for each public library. For 2003, the libraries agreed to pay 20 eurocent per inhabitant of their area of operation. This amount will increase in the years to come;
• other content can be bought by libraries through additional contracts at their own choice, cost and convenience.

The content for the basic collections is chosen on the basis of three regional conferences and an e-mail vote of the libraries involved. Priority in opening negotiations for additional content is set by the same fora. In the years to come, appreciation and use of the content by the public will play a more important role in the process.

On the technical side two projects are in progress. A big survey has been done to investigate the options and the feasibility of a common library intranet.

The other project is to add a search engine to Bibliotheek.nl (the Aquabrowser) which will search all content on bibliotheek,nl including databases, in a single search and will present an integrated result. An added feature will be that the user can do a search either in the conventional (boolean) way or "associatively".

To support the library world, the NBLC in co-operation with the NBD, founded an expertise centre called "Laurens". The Centre is the point of exchange of ideas, people and skills within the community. It will also provide (paid) services from a small but experienced staff and - on contract - expertise from outside the library world.

Lending rights

The lending of cd-roms remains a problem. The rightowners maintain that because a cd-rom consists of both content and operating software, the library cannot invoke the library exception but should seek permission and negotiate the price for every cd-rom. After long negotiations, rightowners and NBLC decided to agree to disagree and to put the question before a court of justice. The case is still pending.

The Dutch library world is closely following the national implementation of the European copyright directive which came into force in summer 2001. The Dutch government honoured most of the possible exceptions in the (proposal of) law they sent this summer to Parliament. Lobbying will be heavy. As many members (2/3) of the last Parliament either did not stand in the recently held general elections or lost their seats, the political situation is unclear. In addition, the new government can reassess the position taken by their predecessors.

FOBID, the Dutch umbrella organisation for libraries, decided to hire a professional lobbyist to enable the voice of the library world to be heard in as loud and convincing way as possible. We try to live up to the example of EBLIDA, a stronghold for the European libraries and archives (website www.eblida.org), which its seat in the premises of the NBLC in The Hague, and was a great support for the European library cause. Often in good co-operation with European consumer and other user organisations, EBLIDA successfully fought against many unfavourable amendments in the European Parliament and managed to safeguard the European copyright framework.

Relation to publishers and booksellers

Relations between libraries and booksellers have improved enormously over the last few years. Together they organise public meetings with writers and other activities. Last year the NBLC joined the Dutch book promotion association of publishers and booksellers (CPNB) and participates in the activities on an equal footing with both founding fathers. The CPNB is capable of creating a massive amount of free publicity for books. Libraries have benefited in the past and will do more so, when they can take an active part in the campaigns.

Together with the federation of booksellers, the NBLC is working on a general bookportal on the internet which wants to provide the public with an independent source of information about books. Buying and lending will be treated alike. If a book is still in print, the public will be informed of the price, nearest bookshops etc. One can also see if the book is available in the library and - depending on the service level of that library on internet - if a reservation can be made. Librarians and booksellers are colleagues in so far as they are both working on the "distribution" side of the bookmarket. Their common interest is that people read books and stay on doing so. Customer satisfaction is the main idea.