1997: The Enkhuizer

Enkhuizen almanac

Along with the tax almanac and the student almanac, the Enkhuizen almanac is the most imaginative Dutch almanac of the early 21st century. It is the only almanac still to resemble the earliest printed almanacs in size, structure and contents. Each year it is published in a huge edition, partly in special versions. The makers of the Enkhuizen almanac also know how to exploit the media. They have their own website www.enkhuizer-almanak.nl, and in 1997 a CD-I version was produced. Although the almanac is not as old as it looks, it is an unparalleled cultural phenomenon that seems to have held its own in this digital age.

Not as old as it seemed

The numbering of the De vanouds vermaarde Erve C. Stichter's Enkhuizer almanak [The Age-Old Celebrated Erve C. Stichter's Enkhuizen Almanac] is based on a misunderstanding. According to the cover, the almanac for 2001 is volume 406. This numbering is based on the almanac found in 1876 on Nova Zembla in Russia's Arctic north, left there almost three centuries earlier by the Dutch seafarer Willem Barentsz during his unsuccessful effort to find a northeast passage. The book, now in the Rijksmuseum, was badly damaged and was not identified until 1983 as a Deventer almanac. Up until then it was assumed that it was the oldest Enkhuizen almanac. But the oldest edition of this almanac, as we now know, did not appear until 1701.

Local almanacs

Besides Enkhuizen, there are many other villages and cities gracing the title pages of almanacs. The KB collection includes more than a hundred different local almanacs totalling many thousands of books, if counted by the individual volume. A village or city would be mentioned in the title for a variety of reasons: it was the place of publication, the location of the market, or the place where the water levels were calculated (as was the case with the Enkhuizen almanac). The large number of almanacs from the northern provinces, especially Friesland, is striking. Usually they contain information about markets, the closing of the city gates, the departure of tow boats, local ordinances, government holidays and useful addresses. Some almanacs were made for a specific local group, such as the Hague militia.

Provincial almanacs

Like villages and cities, provinces also had their own almanacs. Usually the information they contained was similar to that of the local almanacs. They were produced in consultation with the provincial authorities, who purchased them in large numbers for their civil servants. Some provincial almanacs are still being published, usually under the name Yearbook. Along with appointment diaries, notation calendars, timetables, address books, medical encyclopaedias, horoscopes and statistical reviews, they are the heirs of the most versatile little book in Dutch history.