Libraries are essential meeting places in society. Their meeting and information function is important for villages and neighbourhoods. In difficult times this may become much more important, Hans-Dieter Hiep and colleague David Oldenhof argue in the Volkskrant today.

In order to ensure that people are assured of reliable information and (public) communication, even in times of crisis when there is no power and no internet, they argue that a secondary "back-up' network is needed, completely separated from the current commercialised internet. The library offers the ideal opportunity to realize this.

In peacetime, this infrastructure can be used to provide us with a real public internet, with alternatives to BigTech technology, such as DeltaChat, Mastodon, PeerTube, which Waag Futurelab is also working on with so much energy. This enables a more social and humane internet, without the destabilising effects that American Big-Tech has on people and society.

The entire article can be read in today's Volkskrant and online here read.