Last month, RTL investigated how badly libraries in the Netherlands were doing. In an article on this site was then made clear that writers would be victims of this more than necessary. Indeed, by moving library collections to schools, Libraries would escape the obligation to remit a fee (the so-called 'lending right').
That, of course, called for a response from the libraries themselves. That came. We include this submission from the Association of Public Libraries in full.
“The role of the library in our society is changing significantly as society changes. Increasingly, the library is being used to get information in other ways. Knowledge and information transfer is much more often through activities and meetings. Last year, for instance, public libraries organised more than 80,000 activities and meetings on a wide range of topics. Visits to the library are increasing in time and are increasingly becoming digital. Digitalisation is also having a major impact. Borrowing and reading paper books has been in steady decline for years. The SCP Time Spending Survey shows that between 2006 and 2011, reading of printed media dropped from 3.9 hours per week to 2.6 hours per week. The Ecorys/IViR research report examined the period 2006-2015. Lending fell from 125 million to 80 million during that period. A decrease of 36%. For adults it was 44%, for youth the decline was 31%. This development is in keeping with the current times. Countless opportunities have been added over the years that affect how people fill their leisure time or take in information.
Of course, the decline in the number of loans was not without impact on the loan fee, which fell nominally by 24.5 %, from around €17m in 2000 to €11.6m in 2015. During the same period, a legal dispute over loan fees for extensions was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court. This also led to a downturn in total lending fees. Indexation of the fee limited the decline.
In six years, a reading promotion programme through the concept "The Library at School"[1] was developed and introduced at now half of the PO schools (about 3,000). A major achievement, as the roll-out of the programme was not funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Libraries made it possible together with education and municipalities themselves.
The De Bibliotheek op School programme has no blueprint for implementation. There is local customisation and the models in practice are therefore very varied. Above all, the education sector is exempted from paying lending fees if the books are read at school. The Ecorys and IViR report calculates the number of loans made through the Library at School to which a lending fee would apply. Per year, this amounts to 1.125 million loans. In addition, the report also shows that lending fees are remitted when they are not due.
The Association of Public Libraries understands that publishers, authors and other rights holders are not happy with the decline in lending fees. Libraries have also been affected by declining lending, shrinkage and austerity. The number of library branches is declining as is the staffing level (40% between 2004 and 2015). That said, public libraries find reading promotion & reading pleasure for children and adults good reasons to grant authors and other rights holders a good income.
A good and thriving book market and a population that is literate is a public interest. Public libraries need a diverse and high-quality supply of books for this purpose. Libraries are happy to pay the lending rights fee because it enables them to include books in their collections and make them available to the general public."
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