Preface

And another year has flown past. A year in which we continued to be fully committed to building the ABC Huis. A year in which we were fully operational again without the restrictions of the Covid measures. And a year in which we received the great news that Artiance can look forward to extending the Culture-with-Quality scheme, which is A scheme for anchoring cultural lessons into education. The aim is to make art and culture a permanent part of the teaching program. This is a rewarding and justified appreciation for projects and services such as SPOT and the Art School.

Duty of Care and Appreciation

This was also a year with good news for the library. From 2025 onwards, councils will have a duty of care to facilitate proper library work. This constitutes wonderful recognition from the Dutch national government for the importance of our work!

We also notice that the library is increasingly seen and appreciated for the work it does in the fields of promoting language and reading in education, with a national master plan for basic skills.

There will also be money coming from the national government for Digital Inclusion. In 2023, as in previous years, we started and continued various projects pertaining to Digital Inclusion, and it is positive to see ABC Huis, and the library in particular, recognized for the role they play in our society.

And yet resources remain inadequate

At the same time, there is real cause for concern if the structural resources we require to continue to provide our services to the residents of our councils are not being provided.

On top of all this, 2023 was also a year in which we as ABC Huis (and again the library in particular) had to deal with financial setbacks. This is due to the delayed effects of the high inflation in 2022 and the low indexation of our subsidies. This resulted in a negative financial result for 2023 and will also have an impact in 2024.

This low indexation of the subsidy is at odds with the national and local appreciation for art education and library work. This is something we will certainly draw attention to (again).

I hope you enjoy reading our 2023 Annual Report. Perhaps superfluously, but this Report is of course only a cross-section of our fascinating work.

Erna Winters, director of ABC Huis