Our colleagues David Oldenhof and Ronald van Steden wrote an opinion piece in NRC. A version of this article appeared in the newspaper on 29 January. David and Ronald see that after years of demolition there is again appreciation and money for libraries. However, the imperative central management risks damaging existing library cohesion.
Over the past 15 years, library staff and volunteers have maintained the libraries in the luwte. They have managed to transform the library into a public meeting place that is unprecedented. In this new capacity, the government has also regained sight of the sector. Since 2022, there have been several grant rounds to restore the library facilities that have been out of date or disappeared.
In the Library Act from 2015, the revised tasks for the library have been defined. This is, of course, about access to books but also about making public sector information accessible (through an information point digital government), stimulating reading skills (for example book clubs), organising debates, education (language classes), art (concerts) and culture (urban walks). Other suggestions from the explanatory memorandum to the law include film screenings, workshops, lunches, quizzes or markets.
From 1 January 2026 these activities will no longer be suggestions, but will become a duty of care and each municipality in the Netherlands must have a full library, taking into account the above tasks.
A vibrant and well-subsidised library sector with a multitude of social functions: Who could be against that?
It should already be thought that the government is putting the library on a pedestal right now, as the organisation that can solve all kinds of societal challenges: from loneliness to speaking skills and low literacy. The new library agreement signed by the Ministry of Education and Science from 2024 even includes the education of the democratic will. Governments seem to be rapidly putting all the social challenges in the library basket. Most libraries proudly take on their new role, pleased with the renewed enthusiasm for their sector. But can libraries live up to the high expectations?
Libraries have been able to transform in recent years because they were able to experiment with new social functions and social roles. Precisely that freedom combined with local involvement of volunteers and professionals will be at stake with the upcoming subsidies, standards and accountability. There will be tensions between government and libraries, when local library initiatives do not fit in with how the "library" law provided for it.
Unmoved official
That tension came in the recent NRC-reportage (NRC 4/1) clearly forward. A government official came to visit the municipality of Roerdalen. This municipality had not applied for any subsidy for a new professional, stone library building. They preferred to spend the subsidy on strengthening the library facilities mostly set up by volunteers in the villages, along with the schools and the community center. However, the official was inflexible; This was not a library. It was not an argument for the government that the government's preferred form did not fit their community of villages.
Suppose there is a professionally run stone library based on the grant. It takes the place of the slowly built volunteer network of people who arranged this facility together for personal motivation. It furthermore replaces the activities currently taking place in the Village House and in local schools. What happens if, in a few years' time, the now sympathetic government pushes its priorities and cuts libraries? Then not only the library is gone, but also all the valuable networks of people who arranged this themselves. Then who will take over language lessons when the paid professional has left?
At a time when social cohesion is under great pressure, the government should ask itself more often where it should be absent. Where she can give space to flourish citizens' initiatives. Places that, like the library of Roerdalen, float on the initiative of residents themselves. Here the care, attention, empathy of citizens for each other and the community flourishes.
The Netherlands has long ceased to be a country with a thriving local network of churches, trade unions, associations and other social structures. The library is one of the last remaining public meeting places. Now it likewise threatens to be included in the logic of central control. That is a disaster in the making. Better is the government thinking about supporting local initiative, of people working on language lessons, culture and public sector information. Much more robust.
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