The Netherlands needs to make its heritage more resilient

While threats to national and international heritage as a result of geopolitical tensions and cybersabotage have increased significantly, Dutch heritage institutions are insufficiently prepared for disasters, digital or physical attacks, writes Wilma van Wezenbeek, Director General of the KB National Library of the Netherlands. She argues not only for more awareness of this among heritage managers and enthusiasts alike, but also for greater openness about incidents. "Our fear of sharing sensitive information and reputational damage makes us reluctant to do so, but that closed attitude increases vulnerability."

If only we could say that it ended there. However, the problem is that cultural heritage institutions are also increasingly managing digital collections and that makes them particularly vulnerable. The most frightening example of this that we know of is the cyberattack carried out on the British Library in 2023. Back then, some 600 GB of data stolen from our colleagues in England was put online, including personal data of users and staff, after this national library had refused to pay a ransom. On top of that, a number of servers were rendered unusable and that was disastrous for the library's services. To this day, the British Library is working to restore the necessary infrastructure and the financial damage suffered is now running into millions. In addition, of course, the impact it has for customers, and therefore society, cannot be expressed in monetary terms.

Needless to say, this was a real wake-up call for the KB, given that making our national library collection available is one of our core missions and any ransomware attack would have huge consequences. Such an attack would affect one in three of the Dutch population, which is the percentage of people who access our digital services. However, the availability of the physical collection would also be undermined by the loss of digital access. Unfortunately, this risk is also all too real. The KB is already being harassed daily with tens of thousands of 'requests', which are intended to cripple digital access to our library's collection and data. Sometimes the deliberate damage is an end in itself and data is destroyed beyond repair. Clearly our top priority is to strengthen the KB's digital security and we cannot rest on our laurels for a moment.

Not only have our collections become more diverse, the threats they are facing have also become more complex. Given the current geopolitical climate, we have to plan for the possibility of war, which would present all kinds of risks to cultural heritage, ranging from looting and pillaging to shelling and bombing. Cultural heritage can be a deliberate target in times of war precisely because of its iconic value. The July 2023 bombing of Unesco world heritage site 'the historic centre of Odesa' was a recent symbolic low point in this respect.

However, while the number of threats has increased, the collective awareness of the resilience of our heritage has not grown accordingly. Our own examples also show that, at this point in time, heritage institutions are insufficiently resilient to disasters and cyber or physical attacks.

Any increase in our collective awareness of real threats is hampered by our lack of openness to the idea. When incidents occur, we share our experiences behind closed doors, or only with professional colleagues. As heritage institutions, our reluctance to be open stems partly from a legitimate fear, given that those who share information about their weaknesses also provide potential perpetrators with valuable information by doing so.

However, it is fair to say that the fear of reputational damage is a second aspect the plays a role in these kinds of situations. Nevertheless, the collateral damage that results from us being insufficiently open is that we increase the vulnerability of our heritage in two ways because we are depriving each other of valuable lessons that might help avert the next threat. Actively going public with threats and incidents also serves a second purpose because, by doing so, we show how real the threats are and also encourage others to help prevent or resolve them. 

Of course, there are also positive developments, both within heritage institutions themselves and in networks. One of our own examples is the construction of the innovative new book repository that the national library is about to launch. This new location for the physical library collection is built to withstand climate scenarios, flood disasters and physical threats, and acts as a kind of bunker for the national library collection. An additional advantage of what is going to be the low-oxygen repository is that there is no risk of fire. One positive developments in a networking context is the Safe Heritage Taskforce (Taskforce Veilig Erfgoed) established by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to make the heritage sector more resilient to the threat of a (hybrid) conflict. Members of the taskforce include representatives from the broad heritage sector, as well as Unesco and Blue Shield Netherlands, in addition to government bodies and the Safety Regions.

However, a resilient collection ultimately starts with awareness. In other words, awareness of the fragility of our heritage and of its transitory nature. This all starts at heritage institutions themselves. You need to reflect on the risks facing your collection and make a plan. Collaborate with similar local institutions so that you can take action together, including in the event of specific regional threats. The Haags Preventie Netwerk (The Hague Prevention Network) is a good example of this in our region.

The onus is not just on the heritage institutions. Although people do not realise it sufficiently, our heritage belongs to all of us and heritage only becomes truly resilient when we all look after it, including the people who use it and heritage enthusiasts. Sometimes all we need to do is be alert to suspicious behaviour or challenge each other when we see undesirable situations.

With a view to helping increase the resilience of Dutch heritage, we as the KB are taking part in the National Resilient Heritage Action Day (Landelijke Actiedag Weerbaar Erfgoed) which is being organised by Unesco Netherlands, Blue Shield Netherlands and Cultural Emergency Response on 14 May. On this day we intend to make heritage institutions and visitors across the country more aware of the need to protect our physical and digital heritage more effectively. As a partner in this initiative we are calling on similar heritage institutions to take part in an activity on the day in question and to be more open with each other about the threats we are all experiencing. Let us work together to do all we can to ensure that we can continue to view heritage treasures in museums like Assen, or in the KB reading rooms. Let us work together to make everything of value as resilient as possible.

Wilma van Wezenbeek, Director General of the KB National Library of the Netherlands

'Everything of value is defenceless' is a line from Lucebert's poem entitled 'De zeer oude zingt', which was first published in his Collected Poems (1974). The original can be viewed in the KB under application number FD 1975/262.