Letters 2023

Time for a reading offensive

The results of the international PISA survey on (among other things) the reading comprehension of fifteen-year-olds are alarming. Between 2018 and 2022, the reading skills of Dutch youngsters have fallen again. Currently, one in three 15-year-olds has insufficient reading skills. The Netherlands thus performs below the OESO average for the first time and has the second-lowest score in Europe (Meelissen et al. 2023, Leesmonitor 2023f).

The figures fit into a long line of studies that collectively show that both young people and adults have been reading less for years. Those studies also indicate that young people are finding reading progressively less enjoyable as they get older, with reading mediums often struggling against other media in leisure time (Leesmonitor 2021a, 2021b, 2023b). Yet there are also positive notes: more Dutch people have been reading since the Covid pandemic than before (KVB Boekwerk 2023b). More than 60 per cent of Dutch people read a book every month, and the proportion of those reading for pleasure rose from 48 per cent in 2019 to 55 per cent in 2023 (Nagelhout et al. 2023, KVB Boekwerk 2023c).

'De- reading' and declining reading skills are nevertheless among the most important themes within the Literature domain. With numerous campaigns, interventions and programmes, the sector tries to counter these. Every year, many tens of thousands of young people are reached through programmes such as BookStart (BoekStart) and the Library at School (Bibliotheek op school), the teaching programmes of the School Writer (De Schoolschrijver), the author appearances of the Writers' Centre (De Schrijverscentrale)and campaigns such as Netherlands Reads (Nederland Leest), the Youth Book Week, the Young Jury, Read2Me, Step onto the Red Carpet!, the Read (LEES) app and the National Reading Competition. Research shows that such programmes have positive effects on reading motivation, reading skills and reading pleasure (De Schoolschrijver z.j., De Schrijverscentrale z.j., Leesmonitor 2021d, 2022a, 2023c, 2023d, 2023e, 2024a, 2024b, 2024c).

In addition, much attention is paid to the place that reading and literature occupy in the regular educational curriculum. In many schools, much is being done to prevent negative reading experiences and to instead facilitate positive ones. For instance, in primary schools there is an increasing focus on free reading, and in secondary schools attention is growing on Young Adult Literature as a bridge between youth and adult literature (Leesmonitor 2022b, 2023a). Positive and important in addition is that the plans for the new educational curriculum call for a greater emphasis on reading motivation, and that an extra 29,7 million (rising to 58,7 million in 2025) has been made available for libraries, including for the benefit of reading pleasure and reading skills. Also, in 2022, a start was made on renewing the Dutch examination programme (Curriculum.nu 2019, Uslu 2023, Teunis 2024). In addition, December 2023 saw the launch of Reading Evoltion (LeesEvolutie), an eight-year research project to improve Dutch reading education (Stichting Lezen 2023).

Clearly, in promoting reading, the literature sector and education must work hand in hand. This is therefore an important part of the reading offensive called for by the Council for Culture and the Education Council in 2019 (Raad voor Cultuur et al. 2019). In 2020, the Reading Coalition and several partners reiterated the need for an ambitious reading offensive. They also explicitly asked the ministry for more efforts and additional investments (Leescoalitie 2020).

Former State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu wrote in May 2022 in her Outline Letter on Culture 2022 that the cabinet will continue to work towards future-proof library facilities in every municipality, and that OCW ministers will continue to make a concerted effort to strengthen cooperation between schools, libraries and the community of young people in the field of reading promotion (Uslu 2022a). The Basic Skills Master Plan of former Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Dennis Wiersma also pays much attention to increasing reading skills and motivation (Wiersma 2022). At the end of 2022, it was announced that both ministers together will structurally invest over 60 million euros in libraries and reading promotion. Municipalities will also be obliged to provide a future-oriented library facility for their residents (Uslu 2022b, Uslu 2022c, Stichting Lezen 2022b). A further concrete development in 2022 is that the Library Act was amended so that everyone under 18 can become a free member of a library (Stichting Lezen 2022a).

Recovery and growth

During the Covid pandemic, the proportion of people who read and the frequency with which they read increased (KVB Books 2021b, 2022d, 2022e). New data show that this number remained stable in 2022 (KVB Boekwerk 2023b). The market also ended in the plus: book sales were stable in 2023 with an increase of 0.1 per cent compared to 2022 (KVB Boekwerk 2024a).
Whereas in the Covid years turnover and sales of e-commerce channels grew at the expense of sales by physical shops, this growth slowed down in 2023. For years, the e-commerce channel's market share had been growing, but this trend gained momentum in 2020: online shops saw their sales rise while physical shops suffered losses. In 2022 and 2023, physical shops and e-commerce channels both accounted for 50 per cent of turnover, while the market share of physical shops exceeded that of e-commerce channels at 56 per cent (KVB Boekwerk 2024a).

It is not known how many bookstores had to close their doors during the Covid years 2020-2021, although the rapid decline in the number of bookstores seems to have ended. While Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported that during 2021 the number of bookstores continued to fall by 8,1 per cent, in 2022 the number of shops increased by 0,5 per cent (CBS 2023b). This shows a positive development, although the recovery is certainly not yet complete. The Covid crisis was a major reason for the closures, but the already existing advance of online shops, the demise of the physical shopping streets and difficulty in finding successors also play a role. It is therefore not a foregone conclusion that all problems have passed. In recent years, bookstores have had higher costs and debt, and had less money to invest in supply and stock. In addition, a new question is how shops have been affected by the energy and inflation crises.

In addition to physical bookstores, creators are also generally recovering. Since 2021, the number of mediations for author appearances has been rising (De Schrijverscentrale 2023). Lending rights fees increased in 2022 compared to 2021, although this is partly due to one-off payments for Belgian Lending Rights for the period 2016-2020 that were paid out in 2022 (Lira 2023).

However, the income status of authors has been under strain for some time. Each year, for instance, a slightly larger share of sales goes to foreign-language books and bestsellers (KVB Boekwerk 2023g). In recent years, much attention has been devoted to fees for increasing lending through libraries in schools. Due to an educational exemption in the Copyright Act, lending fees sometimes had to be paid for these loans (if the lent book was owned by the library) and sometimes not (if the lent book was owned by the school). This led to ambiguity and conflict. In July 2022, therefore, new agreements were reached by all stakeholders, including an amendment to the Copyright Act. From now on, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science will make €3,5 million available annually for loans via libraries at school, in addition to a one-off €6 million compensation for creators for missed fees in previous years (Auteursbond 2022, Stichting Lezen 2021, VOB 2022).

The digitisation of the book market also presents challenges for authors, for example with the emergence of streaming and subscription services for e-books and audiobooks. These platforms determine how much each publisher and author gets paid, but there is not always clarity or agreement on this. For instance, will payments be made when a book has been read for a certain amount of time, or after a certain number of pages read? A recent development here is that state secretary Uslu announced in May 2022 that she would invest an additional €3,15 million in public library digital lending to benefit authors and their publishers (Uslu 2022a).

Libraries are also evolving. Subsidies from municipalities and provinces have increased in recent years (CBS 2023c); Former State Secretary Uslu is allocating an additional 29,7 million euros this year to strengthen libraries, rising to 58,7 million in 2025 (Uslu 2023). The number of physical loans showed an increase of 34 percent, with 53,3 million books lent in 2022 compared to 39,8 million in 2021 (CBS 2023c). The use of the online offering is also increasing further. In 2022, almost 7,5 million e-books and audio books were borrowed (CBS 2023a). The number of activities that libraries organize is also increasing, after a number of years in which libraries were forced to experiment with new (digital) offerings and adapted services (KB 2023b).

The numerous campaigns, new (digital) initiatives and various support measures to cushion the effects of the crisis have largely been concluded, but the next few years should reveal the long-term consequences for the sector. At least for the literature sector, these are not all negative. In recent years there has been more reading as well as more reading aloud (Leesmonitor 2021c, KVB Boekwerk 2023b, Nagelhout et al. 2023, KVB Boekwerk 2023c). The value and importance of books, of the library and of the (local) physical bookshop has been reaffirmed. Innovation gained momentum and cooperation and collectivity within the sector were strengthened.

Diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts

Amidst the Black Lives Matter movement, among others, and the introduction of the Diversity & Inclusion Code, there was much talk of diversity and inclusion in the literature sector in 2021. Further, a direct prompt was the criticism of the translator chosen for Amanda Gorman's first poetry collection and her inaugural poem 'The Hill We Climb' (Bahara 2021).

That too little attention is paid to diversity and inclusion in the literature sector seems to be widely acknowledged and has long been known. Various studies underline this notion. For instance, the work of women authors is structurally less appreciated in the literary field (Koolen 2018), Dutch children's books mainly focus on the white perspective (Bossche 2020), (unconscious) (pre)judgements play a role in the publishing profession that work to the disadvantage of authors of colour (Koren et al. 2019, Saha et al. 2020) and reading lists in secondary education are dominated by 'the image of the white, male writer from the Netherlands' (Dera 2019). No structural solution to this seems to have been found even years after these studies were published.

According to discussion partners, awareness of the need to act on diversity has increased significantly since 2021. One such action is to gain more insight into the state of diversity and inclusion within the arts. In early 2022, KVB Boekwerk therefore published a first exploratory study on where the book trade stands in terms of diversity and inclusion. To this end, a survey was completed by 203 authors, 129 translators and 31 publishers. The results are mainly indicative but show that diversity and inclusion are seen as important by a large proportion of respondents, and that a significant proportion pay attention to it. At the same time, this attention is often not structural or embedded in an organisation. Therefore, there is still room for improvement: for instance, the diversity of the book supply only receives a poor evaluation, and the book trade is still mainly seen as a white and highly educated stronghold (KVB Boekwerk 2022b).

Diversity research is also being conducted in the library sector. The KB and TU Delft are working together on a study as a possible basis for new recommendation technology 'that does more justice to the multiformity and polyphony of the library' (Bibliotheeknetwerk z.j.a). Since 2022, the KB and CBS have jointly published a dashboard that gives public libraries more insight into the members and non-members in their service area (Bibliotheeknetwerk 2023). Additionally, in June 2022, a study was published that showed that while diversity and inclusion in school libraries' collections is considered important, it is perceived as difficult to achieve in practice for various reasons (Bruijn et al. 2022).

Beyond research, however, taking action is especially important. Many organisations in the sector have expressed ambitions to contribute to a more inclusive literature sector or have already taken steps to do so. Moreover, there are numerous organisations and initiatives that play a major and valuable role in this. In early 2022, KVB Boekwerk collected 31 Dutch initiatives committed to diversity and inclusion in the book trade (KVB Boekwerk 2022c). For a diverse and inclusive (children's) book selection, book buyers can visit bookshop EduCulture, for example, or they can take out an inclusive book subscription at Books by Ani. This more diverse book selection includes publishers such as Rose Stories, Wilde Haren Publishers or Pluim Publishers in collaboration with the podcast Dipsaus. Organisations such as Alphabet Street ('guild for Black (visual) linguists'), Poetry Circle ('the national platform for writing performers and performing writers') and El Hizjra ('literary bridge builder between the Netherlands and the Arabic-speaking world') also dedicate themselves to a diverse group of authors, connecting them with each other or with audiences. Writers' collective Fixdit was established to raise awareness about gender inequality.

Innovation within and outside the book

Partly as a result of digitisation, domains such as Music, Games and Audiovisual have seen major changes in production, distribution and consumption in recent years. This is less the case in the book trade. Paper books still account for 92 per cent of total book sales, and half of these books are sold in physical bookshops (KVB Boekwerk 2023a).

Yet innovation concerning the paper book is happening in many ways. Innovations include new ways for books and readers to find each other. In 2020, as part of the so-called 'Delta Plan for the Book Trade', consideration was given to increased efficiency and cost savings in the supply chain. This resulted in six innovation projects and one research project, some of which have now been completed (KVB Boekwerk 2021a, 2022a). One interesting project of these concerns Theme Coding, which CB has made compulsory for Dutch-language general books since January 1st. This Thematic Coding enables the categorisation of books in much greater detail .

With this coding, bookstores and libraries can make much more specific recommendations, and readers can more easily search for books themselves. From the diversity perspective, this is also an interesting development: not only does theme coding allow a clearer understanding of the diversity of stories that books tell, but it could also make it easier for a reader to find those diverse stories (Dessing 2018).

Efforts are also being made to make book production and distribution more sustainable. For instance, publishers are looking for ways to have books printed as sustainably as possible and to optimise print runs (Klein Lankforst 2019, Dessing 2022a, GAU s.a.) and distributors are succeeding in terms of packaging materials and transport (see, for instance, Bol.com s.a., CB s.a.b). More and more bookshops are also making sustainable advances (Dessing 2022b). For instance, Libris Blz. asks publishers to upload their 2024 summer catalogues, so that bookshops can handle the entire order digitally (Dessing 2024).

A much-discussed innovation was NBD Biblion's announcement in March 2022 that book reviews would be written by artificial intelligence (AI) from then on, replacing the 700 human reviewers. While this software could make book information more readily available to libraries, there are concerns about the quality of the artificial texts and their impact on library collections and book knowledge (Jong 2022).
AI is a topic of discussion at various levels in the literature sector. While some see opportunities and encourage the book industry to use it (KVB Boekwerk 2024b), others also acknowledge the risks and call for cooperation to deal with AI responsibly (Bibliotheeknetwerk 2024). Similarly, the question of how the industry will deal with copyright in relation to generative AI is relevant and remains unanswered (Auteursbond 2023a, 2023b).

One form of innovation that has emerged not from the book industry, but from readers, is BookTok. This is a community within the platform TikTok, in which users make videos about books they have read or tips they want to share. BookTok is especially popular among young people; 42 per cent of them get book tips from social media and a quarter of them say they read books they have seen on TikTok. English-language books are particularly popular here, with a third of 16-25-year-olds preferring to read in English (KVB Boekwerk 2023d). The popularity of BookTok is unprecedented and encourages the industry to respond to it, for example by English-language editions or through special BookTok tables in bookshops ('Known from BookTok') or the BookTok Top 10.

Innovation is also taking place beyond traditional books, for example in digital reading and digital literature. For instance, most entries to the longlist of the innovation prize Renew the Book 2022 related to digital reading, including the ultimate winner Pathbooks (Renew the Book 2022). Other examples include research into the possibilities of making digital literature part of library collections, The School Writer's (De Schoolschrijver) interactive and digital Reading and Writing Timeline, and the collaboration between Young People's Book Week and Readification, aimed at getting more young people to read through stories and book recommendations in games (Bibliotheeknetwerk z.j.b, Stichting Lezen 2024).

Finally, alongside digital literature, the popularity of spoken literature is also on the rise. The emergence of podcasts and audiobooks is not a recent development, but their rapidly increasing popularity is. For instance, the number of audiobooks downloaded through the library increased twelvefold between 2015 and 2022, and as many as 48 per cent of Dutch people sometimes listen to a podcast, compared to 2019 numbers of 28 per cent. Among young people aged 12 to 18, as many as 66 per cent say they occasionally listen to a podcast (CBS 2023a, Petit et al. 2022). Another form of spoken literature offers the work of spoken word artists and recitation artists. While recitation art is certainly not new either, it is a discipline that is attracting increasing attention. Since 2018, for instance, these creators can join The Writers' Centre (De Schrijverscentrale), and since 2021, for the first time, they can apply for a structural subsidy from the Dutch Foundation for Literature (Nederlands Letterenfonds). In 2022, the fund also opened a new grant scheme for 'creators from beyond the book' (Nederlands Letterenfonds 2022, 2023). This pilot scheme ran until September XNUMX and is under evaluation.