Online library on the rise: The Dutch borrow over five million e-books every year

Exactly ten years ago this Sunday, the then Minister of Culture Jet Bussemaker officially lent out the first e-book via the public libraries' special online platform, the so-called online Bibliotheek (online library). It was Vaslav, the novel by Arthur Japin about the life of the legendary ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950).

In the first year (2014), around 80,000 people borrowed a total of almost 810,000 digital books in this way. There are now more than 600,000 people who borrow books through the online library every year: a total of more than five million e-books and around two million audiobooks. The increase is partly due to the COVID‑19 restrictions.

This concerns digital books that people with regular subscriptions to the library in their area can borrow from the online library and digital books borrowed by people who only have an account on that platform, which is managed by the KB, the national library.

"We were the first online library in Europe where e-books could be borrowed by more than one user at a time," recalls Ronald Huizer, member of the KB Board of Directors. The system is now well established. "In the years before the coronavirus, between three and four million e-books were borrowed every year. After that, it was consistently more than five million." According to Huizer, the special ThuisBieb app from 2020, which allows non-members to receive 100 e-books and audiobooks free of charge, has contributed to the growth.

Since then, several apps have been developed and launched, such as last year's LEES (READ) app, which allows students to download 120 e-books and audiobooks for free. Although young people's appetite for reading tends to decline, "almost 40,000 e-books and audiobooks have already been borrowed since the launch in September, which are encouraging initial results," says Huizer.

He would also "like to reach more people who now hardly read or are learning to read", people who do not read much at home or simply cannot read well. Libraries already organize reading promotion programs for this purpose.