The joint public libraries in the Netherlands have asked TNO to study the size and costs of digital collections between 2012 and 2016. State Secretary for Culture Halbe Zijlstra is consulting with provinces and municipalities on amending library legislation. That law will also determine how much purchasing digital collection (e-books and music) costs. To conduct the talks properly, the libraries wanted to get an insight into how big libraries' digital collection will be and what it will cost.
TNO now concludes in the study, that with collection digitisation, libraries' total media expenditure is significantly lower. The advantage of digitisation of the collection is that libraries have a much wider selection and can reach a wider audience. Lower costs are mainly due to efficiency gains through centralised purchasing and lending. An e-book, for instance, can be lent much more often than a 'regular book'. After all, it can be borrowed by all library members, instead of only members of a local library. Also, e-books can be purchased at a much lower price than regular books. This is why TNO calls the digital scenario a 'more-reading scenario'. And libraries hope that the four million users will not only be able to use a good digital infrastructure, but will also read more. Bibliotheek.nl, which includes all public libraries in the country, hopes that the report will contribute to good decision-making on how to pay for the digitisation of the collection. And also that reading can be promoted in the coming years, as libraries can respond to the increasing demand for books and other 'digital content'.
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