The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science wants to introduce legislation for archiving online heritage. This will make it easier for cultural heritage institutions such as the KB to archive websites. The proposal was discussed in the House of Representatives in January.
More speed
In the Netherlands, cultural heritage institutions such as the KB National Library and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision archive websites. Under current law, permission must first be obtained from each website owner to store their website in, for example, the KB's web archive. This often causes delays, during which websites can be changed or even deleted before they’re stored. Online heritage is lost every day due to this because web pages on average change after 90 days.
The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science stated it wants to introduce legislation by the end of 2029 at the earliest, and feels more research is needed beforehand. The KB believes that this new three-year research phase is unnecessary because sufficient research was already carried out in 2021 and 2025. The National Library underlines that the sooner the internet can be archived more thoroughly, the more heritage will be preserved for the future.
Opinion piece
In January, the NRC newspaper featured an opinion piece, in which the KB, along with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and KVAN (Royal Association of the Archives Sector of The Netherlands), stressed the importance of speed in the new legislation. A few years ago, KB board member Martijn Kleppe published the opinion piece 'Nederland verwaarloost zijn digitale erfgoed' (The Netherlands is neglecting its digital heritage) in the Volkskrant newspaper. "More gaps are appearing in our shared digital memory every day," he wrote. "It is crucial that the government acts quickly to ensure that these gaps do not grow larger."
