University of Virginia Library

5. Readers and Reading

The purpose in generating print culture items is that they are read. This chapter discusses the development of attitudes to reading and literacy in New Zealand, opening with a survey of literacy programmes and resources within the formal education system from the 19th century through to the present day. This is complemented by the following section 'Creating an interest in print culture' which reviews ways in which a range of organisations, including the book trade itself, works towards increasing the general level of interest in reading.

     'Recognition and rewards of success' identifies incentives for writers and the trade through literary prizes and awards, and also looks at the development of literary criticism and reviewing of New Zealand creative literature in English. A slightly different approach is taken in 'Changing trends and special needs' which surveys a broad spectrum of 'different' publications from comics to artists' books, and from talking books to luxury editions and CD-ROM products.

     The final section of this chapter covers the major New Zealand access tools, which fill multiple roles in the print culture context. Bibliographies, indexes and general reference works are not only a publishing category of their own (and one worthy of detailed study), but they also provide a necessary infrastructure through which access is gained to print culture records and publishing history. They are valuable resources for researchers, who are readers of a special sort.

Reading and literacy

Before 1877

The teaching of reading and education generally in New Zealand was sporadic and uneven in the first years of the 19th century. Samuel Marsden opened the first mission school for Mäori in 1816 in the Bay of Islands, and before 1840 there were also Wesleyan and Catholic mission schools. C.L. Bailey in A Documentary History of New Zealand Education (1989) points out there were 'hordes' of children on the ships of the New Zealand company, 195 on the Bolton alone, with some desultory schooling but, though clergymen were given free passage for services rendered, schoolteachers were not.

     Most schools were established by churches or private individuals and privately run and paid for. In the 1850s provincial governments were given responsibility for education, but only Nelson and Otago set up education systems, and in 1858 Nelson abolished fee-paying in favour of a household levy. Reading was dependent on the reading books used in Britain which were brought by settlers, and Hugh Price's essay 'Reading books and reading in New Zealand schools 1877-1900' (1987) notes the most widely used were the religious and didactic Irish National Readers. From 1867 New Zealand booksellers began to import the graded series of Royal Readers , published by Thomas Nelson of Edinburgh to meet the needs of the British Revised Code of 1862 which varied teachers' payment according to the examination success of their pupils. Parents were required to buy one reader per year, and promotion from class to class was based almost entirely on success in reading.

     Demand for literacy among Mäori was very strong in the early part of the 19th century. M.P.K. Sorrenson in 'Maori and Pakeha' in The Oxford History of New Zealand (1981, p.170) estimated that by 1845 about half of adult Mäori could read a little in Mäori. Readers for Mäori speakers appeared very early: in 1815, A Korao no New Zealand or the New Zealander's First Book , a glossary and phrase book; Ratari , lists of phonetic sound groups in Mäori and words in 1834; and from 1839 William Colenso printed a series of readers and lesson sheets in Mäori at the Waimate Mission. Most of the Mäori readers printed in the 1840s and 1850s were produced by mission presses.

      He Puka Ako i te Korero Maori (1841) is a wordlist of South Island Mäori compiled by James Watkin and He Korero Tara mo te Kura (1851) is a collection of fables. He Pukapuka Whakaako mo te Kura , printed at St. John's College in 1852, is a typical example of the mission-produced reader in Mäori, opening with lists of vowels, then syllables, sentences, paragraphs and numbers. (A later edition (1870) added prayers and responses.) Colenso published Ko te A-Nui a Wi Hei Ako Maana ki te Reo Ingirihi or Willie's First English Book in 1872, a parallel text for learning English with graded lessons and vocabularies.

     Teaching reading to Mäori in English became standard practice in 1886 with The Native School Reader for Standards II and III , produced by the Government Printer, which consisted of 50 fables 'altered and in some cases localised so that they may be interesting to Maoris' (preface). The Native School Reader abounds with hortatory 'fables' which are colonising and assimilatory in intent. Kuni Jenkins's study of literacy as an agent of colonisation Becoming Literate—Becoming English (1993), discusses the earliest Mäori manuscripts by Titere and Tuai (referred to in some sources as 'Tui'), young Ngäpuhi men who spent 1818 in England and recorded their reading lessons in English. Jenkins makes an important argument about the whole process of literacy as a coercive tool of colonisation.

     Reports from the Inspectors of Native Schools published in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHR) from 1858 onwards sometimes provide very detailed information as to numbers of pupils, reading progress and texts used. Although administration of Native Schools was transferred to the Education Department in 1879, separate reports for Native Schools continue in AJHR through until 1953 (shoulder numbers vary, especially before 1882).

Education Act 1877

The Education Act 1877 provided for free, compulsory and secular education and began the standardisation of reading systems and readers, which are comprehensively discussed up to 1900 in Price (1987). The curriculum stressed reading and writing and graded children into six standards with corresponding readers. Reading was taught by the alphabetic method: exercises in letters and letter combinations, progressing from texts written in one and two-letter words to three-letter word texts, until whole paragraphs in small typeface were achieved. The reading texts were mostly moral tales written for British council schools and maintained class values and divisions. Most readers imply reading skills should be directed towards civic and moral duty such as H.O. Arnold-Forster's The Citizen Reader (1907), which set out to describe institutions and administration to New Zealand children in language they could understand. Approved Readers for the Catholic Schools of Australasia (1908) mixed approved excerpts from literary writers and clerics, and New Zealand Graphic Readers (Collins School Series) offered extracts from 'classic' writers such as Shakespeare and Addison together with Cook's journals and short descriptive pieces on New Zealand topics.

     Department of Education Inspectors' reports published from 1880 on-wards in AJHR (H.1-I, 1880; E.1-B, 1881-1908) open a 'window on Victorian classrooms', especially the methods and most frequent problems and complaints encountered in teaching reading, one of which was the scarcity of reading books (Price, 1987, p.187). W.C. Hodgson's Inspector's report for the Marlborough Education Board (1888) puts the proportion of books to pupils in a class in Picton at 6:17.

     The first mainstream reading books published in New Zealand were Whitcombe & Tombs's Southern Cross Readers (1886-87), followed by the Imperial Readers (1899) and the Pacific Readers series which began in 1911 and aimed 'to assist in fostering the growth of national and patriotic sentiments'. From 1911 to 1949 nearly all New Zealand children learned to read from locally written and published reading books— Live Readers for the Modern Child (1922) and Progressive Readers (1928), not replaced until 1949 by the Janet and John series which was based on an American original. Whitcombe & Tombs were the major publishers of reading materials for children, with one series after another. There was no comparable publisher in Australia and Whitcombe & Tombs's readers were also widely used there, with copies produced for each Australian state. Whitcombe & Tombs also produced Whitcombe's Story Books , a series which began in 1904 and included about 450 titles at its height in the late 1930s and early 1940s, by which time it was the biggest series of children's books in the world. Ian McLaren's bibliography Whitcombe's Story Books (1984) and its supplement (1987) is a comprehensive listing of the series which included many reprints of 'classic' texts. Before 1949 parents bought reading books directly, but with the advent of Janet and John came school sets, and a change in focus, shifting to descriptive tales of children's experience.

     Basil Carryer's School in New Zealand in the Twenties (1991) gives an account of the reading methods and history of education in the 1920s, including school timetables, the date of the new syllabus and the opening of the Correspondence School in 1928.

Reading series and methods

There is no comprehensive account of the history of reading and reading methods in New Zealand after Price's 1987 essay, though Price himself has a work in progress on the history of reading books from 1900. However, the number of studies and papers on reading grows exponentially from the 1950s. Much of the research was initiated and funded by the Department (now Ministry) of Education and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). Hig[h]lights in Education 1816-1985 (1986) is a useful checklist of major events in education, and Roger Openshaw's 'Schooling in

the 50's and 60's' (1991) and Price's School Books Published in New Zealand to 1960 (1992) provide accounts of the materials and educational methods of those years. Price (1992) is a supplement to Bagnall's New Zealand National Bibliography to the year 1960 which excluded school textbooks; Price contains about 2,000 titles listed in chronological order under subject headings.

     The production of reading materials has been a traditional activity of the Department/Ministry of Education dating back to before the 1920s; reading readiness has latterly been a focus of its research and publication. The School Journal , which began in 1907, has been a continuous source of reading material for schools. Provided free to every child monthly until the late 1950s, it is a mix of fiction and non-fiction produced by local writers and was accompanied (1948-80) by School Bulletins for primary and post-primary students, also published by the Department. In 1989 the School Publications Branch of the Department of Education was corporatised into Learning Media Ltd, which continues to produce the Journal and the Ready to Read series, as well as handbooks for teachers on reading and writing. Its School Journal Catalogue (1996) is a current index.

     The Department of Education also produced guides for teachers to help them choose readers: Books for Infant Classes (1969), a checklist which gave the readers a rating; Books for Junior Classes (1978), now published every two years (the most recent in 1996), a classified guide to commercially-published material; Reading in Junior Classes (1991); and The Learner as a Reader (1996), which has a section on recent reading resources produced by the Ministry of Education.

      Janet and John , which replaced Whitcombe's Progressive Readers series in 1949, used a combination of phonic analysis pre-reading and 'look and say' vocabulary learning, but the early issues were weak on narrative. ( Run, John, Run: Watch, Janet, Watch , a study of sex-role stereotyping in infant readers was published in 1975, and Anne Else critiqued the sexism and racism of Janet and John readers in a paper given at the first annual conference of the History of the Book in New Zealand, Auckland, 1995.) Initially there were seven books accompanied by a handbook for teachers, but it was found they needed supplementing to reduce the steepness of the learning curve. In 1963 the Department of Education published the New Zealand-centred Ready to Read series of 12 little and six big books. The Ready to Read series produces new titles every year and is issued to all New Zealand schools with junior classes; support materials include An Introduction to Ready to Read (1993).

     At the invitation of the Department of Education, a number of publishers also began publishing supplementary little book series in the 1960s: Reed's Read it Yourself books and the Environmental readers, Paul's Book Arcade Playtime readers, Whitcombe and Tombs's Step Along Stories , and Price Milburn. Price Milburn's 32 PM Supplementary Readers were published 1963-65 and followed the same graded colour covers and vocabularies as Ready to Read . In 1968 Price Milburn began to export to America and Britain. The books were revised in 1969 and included in the long-running series PM Story Readers , many of them written by Beverley Randell, one of the best known and most prolific writers of story readers for children. Hugh Price's Beverley Randell: A Checklist of Children's Books Written by Her, 1955-1995 (1996) indicates the scope of her writing and the series of children's books available.

     Shortland introduced the Story Box series for five-to eight-year-olds to New Zealand schools in 1978 and started exporting them in 1979. Many of the readers were written by Joy Cowley, the well-known novelist. Wendy Pye's reading scheme Jellybeans (for the parent market) began in 1985 and contains about 200 titles, again many written by already well-known writers like Cowley and Margaret Mahy. A number of more recent issues have also come out in Mäori translations. Pye's export of school readers to Europe and the US has been phenomenally successful and she has also been the first publisher in the world to successfully market an educational reading scheme on video. Thomas Nelson took over from Price Milburn and produces picture books and other early reading material. In 1997 Learning Media expanded into the United States, introducing two new children's programmes—Learning Media Literacy and Learning Media Professional—with 140 New Zealand children's books and materials adapted for the American market.

Teaching reading

Since 1963 New Zealand teachers have been members of the International Reading Association and the proceedings of the annual conferences of the New Zealand Reading Association (NZRA) are a useful account of reading practices, materials and research from 1970.

      English in the New Zealand Curriculum is the Ministry of Education's policy document which sets out the reading objectives of the curriculum. Literacy is regarded as a reciprocal relation between reading and writing in New Zealand and there are two teachers' handbooks which accompany the policy— Dancing with The Pen: The Learner as a Writer (1992) and The Learner as a Reader: Developing Reading Programmes (1996), which contains a helpful bibliography of resources and discusses the conceptual thinking behind the teaching of reading.

     The work of Dorothy Neal White and Dorothy Butler stresses the importance of books to small children. White's Books Before Five (1954) is based on a reading diary White kept of her daughter Carol's response to and interest in books with suggestions for parents. Butler's Babies Need Books (1980) discusses introducing books to babies and includes booklists by age group, as does its sequel Five to Eight (1986), a manual for parents on how to read and interact with children about books. Cushla and her Books (1979) is a case study of Butler's handicapped granddaughter and her relation with books, based on a reading diary kept by her mother, and also provides biographical information on the way Cushla learned to read.

     The progress of children learning to read is monitored by teachers administering the PAT (progressive achievement) tests developed in the late 1960s, explained in Warwick Elley and Neil Reid's Progressive Achievement Tests (1969). The realisation that little was known about how small children interact and learn in the classroom led to the pioneering Reading Recovery work of Dame Marie Clay and the development of the Reading Recovery programme. Clay's Reading: The Patterning of Complex Behaviour (1972) and The Early Detection of Reading Difficulties (1979a) discuss the processes and procedures of reading readiness, including a diagnostic survey and Reading Recovery. Clay's work has been very influential internationally and there are many studies of reading which refer to or use her work. Courtney B. Cazden's Whole Language Plus: Essays on Literacy in the United States and New Zealand (1992) describes her seven trips to New Zealand from 1983 to 1991 in order to pursue a research project in Reading Recovery based on Clay's research (1979b, 1993).

     There is a great deal of research on reading acquisition, Reading Recovery and reading readiness in education publications. Elley's Assessing the Difficulty of Reading Materials (1975) addresses the whole word method; he is the author of numerous studies on the teaching of reading including Lessons Learned From LARIC (1988). Learning Media's The Learner as a Reader (1996) surveys the field of theoretical writing in recent years and provides some historical account of the teaching of reading in the last two decades. There are also useful bibliographies and discussion of recent developments in Tom Nicholson's Overcoming the Matthew Effect (1991) and At the Cutting Edge (1994). There is a bibliography of New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) publications 1934-84 (Marland and Pickens, 1985) but no bibliography of Department of Education publications.

Literacy

Hans Wagemaker's Achievement in Reading Literacy (1993) is a comprehensive breakdown of the reading achievement of a group of 9-and 14-year-old readers undertaken as part of an international Unesco survey which discusses the factors influencing reading achievement and puts New Zealand's overall performance in an international context. A commentary on the survey is offered in Comprehending the Recent IEA Reading Literacy Survey (NZEI, 1993) which discusses the high correlation between a country's reading achievement and economic indicators. Ministry of Education reports such as Boyd and Bennie's A Summary of Reading Recovery Data (1989), and Henson's Reading in the Middle and Upper Primary School (1991), and the Research Bulletin produced by the Ministry of Education provide continuing information on reading achievement.

     Janet Maconie's Survey of Teenage Reading in New Zealand , published for the 1969 New Zealand Library and Book Week, surveys the reading habits of fourth formers and the availability of reading resources for teenagers. A community reading survey carried out in Levin in 1978 published by the New Zealand Book Council (Kate Fortune, 1982) revealed the community percentage of what the study described as 'heavy readers' and provided rare information on reading habits. Monthly publications like the Booksellers News (1988-) or the quarterly Booknotes , newsletter of the New Zealand Book Council, provide a record of bestseller lists, book events and some indication of readerships.

     Adult literacy was not publicly recognised as a problem in New Zealand until the early 1970s when organised literacy programmes were developed. Kathleen Hill's From This Fragile Web (1990) is an informal history of the Adult Literacy Movement in New Zealand, which began in Hawkes Bay in 1974 with the Hawkes Bay Adult New Readers Programme. John Benseman's Taking Control Over Their Own Lives (1989) is a study of the Auckland Literacy Scheme and a history of ARLA, the Adult Reading and Learning Assistance Federation. Benseman points out there is very little research on adult literacy in New Zealand and includes a useful discussion of available research work. An NZCER survey A Job-Related Survey Among Electric Power Board Workers (1983) looks at workplace literacy, as does Literacy At Work (1993), which is a joint ARLA/Fletcher Challenge project surveying literacy in 17 companies from a number of different industries in the Fletcher Challenge group. Angela Irwin's study for the Department of Education The Literacy Needs of Access Students (1988) and A.D. Mudford's Literacy Survey of Prison Inmates (1993) also focus on the literacy of particular groups.

     In 1988 the Caxton Press published Michael's Challenge Overcoming Illiteracy by Michael Marquet, an autobiographical account of the author's speech and learning difficulties and achievement of literacy in the Christchurch Adult Reading Scheme. Marquet's book won the Unesco Literacy Award for 1988 and was followed by a fuller account including his trip to Paris to receive the award, Literacy My Prize (1991). It is estimated there are 50,000-100,000 adult New Zealanders with literacy problems. Unesco continues to be involved with literacy work in New Zealand, publishing papers on progress in literacy and supporting conferences. In 1990, International Literacy Year, Unesco supported the International Literacy Year hui on Mäori and Pacific Island issues in literacy and the 17th NZRA conference Nurture the Culture in the same year published a variety of papers on literacy and had as its keynote speakers Dame Marie Clay and Leanna Traill on 'Educational Culture: Aotearoa'. Literacy issues are also of interest to economists. Ian Livingstone's Literacies, Numeracies and Scientific Understandings (1994) discusses the relation between education and economic growth.

Te Reo and literacy programmes for Mäori

One of the initiatives of the Tü Tangata philosophy of the Department of Maori Affairs in the late 1970s was the establishment of the Te Köhanga Reo movement in 1977. The primary aim of Te Köhanga Reo is to encourage and increase the development of Mäori spoken language but they also begin pre-reading skills with picture cards and stories in Mäori. The consequence of success in Te Köhanga Reo and continuing education in Mäori has been a huge increase in Mäori text picture books, school readers and educational books generally. One of the most important changes in education generally and specifically teaching reading has been the development of Te Reo Mäori, and there are now over 60 titles in the He Purapura series of readers for five-to eight-year-olds; some of the Ready to Read series have been translated into Mäori, and there are also the He Kohikohinga series for older students; Ngä Körero which are stories from the School Journal translated into Mäori and Ngä Tamariki Iti o Aotearoa , books designed to be read to young children. These series are all produced by Learning Media and are listed in a handbook Te Reo Mäori Resources (1993). (Learning Media has also produced reading materials in Samoan and other Pacific Island languages which are discussed in more detail in the following chapter.)

     Literacy among Mäori children prompted the development of the Reading Tutoring Programme documented in Pause, Prompt, Praise (Atvars, Berryman and Glynn, 1995), a trial project implemented by Mäori for Mäori in the Tauranga area. Surveys like Wagemaker (1993) highlight the comparatively

poor performance of Mäori and Polynesian children in reading achievement and there are as yet no PAT tests for children learning reading in Mäori. Children's reading achievement in Mäori is discussed in Köhanga Reo Let's Celebrate (1992). Mäori Literacy and Numeracy (Irwin, Davies and Harre Hindmarsh, 1995) puts Mäori literacy generally into the context of colonial and post-colonial political and discursive processes and discusses the collision of an oral tradition with the world of literacy.

Conclusion

The huge quantity of material on the teaching of reading cannot be adequately covered in this survey but even a preliminary indication of its extent draws attention to the importance of literacy in New Zealand's colonial and post-colonial culture; the ways in which literacy is both the first ground and an active factor in discourses as widely spread as colonisation, imperial history, pedagogy, economics, cognitive development and gender; its role in the conflict between an oral and a print culture; and to the development of reading materials and methods in New Zealand that are internationally recognised and imitated. The teaching of reading and the place of literacy are significant emphases in New Zealand cultural history.

Creating an interest in print culture

A history of the creation of interest in print culture is largely that of institutions and organisations, and thus is relatively easy for the researcher to identify and access. Two aspects seem important historically and in contemporary terms: the education system (including its encouragement of reading as a function of the basic skill of literacy), and a generally held (though increasingly contested) notion of 'culture'. That is, those values which a civilised society deems its duty to uphold, and which have historically included literature. Victorians, such as Matthew Arnold, saw literature as a moral force in a world increasingly uncertain about the security of religious faith, and the academic study of literature, new in the 19th century, took on this Messianic tinge. In Britain, movements towards universal education and in particular adult self-improvement combined both these strands—the educational and the cultural—and these values were brought to New Zealand by 19th-century immigrants, who saw and used reading as a central part of their value system.

     The history and development of the public library system embodies these attitudes, and is therefore an obvious source of information. Libraries not only provide books, but historically have also developed programmes of encouragement and education aimed both at adults and children. Encouragement of membership and use, reading sessions, special promotions concerning particular books or events and the generally high profile of the library in the community are factors that contribute. Sources for the researcher are, obviously, written histories and archival material concerning individual libraries. Examples include C.W. Holgate's An Account of the Chief Libraries in New Zealand (1886), John Barr's Auckland Public Libraries 1880-1950 (1950), and Dorothy Stafford's The Library from the Sea: the Nelson Public Library 1842-1992 (1992), which contain a wealth of detail and anecdote, as well as testifying to the commitment early communities had to literary culture. Mary Ronnie's Books to the People: A History of Regional Services in New Zealand (1993) gives an overview.

     There are a number of more theoretical or policy-oriented works which concern the library and its place in society: for example, McIntyre's Building the Library into the Community (1969); Cullen and Calvert's Public Library Effectiveness (1992b); O'Reilly's 'Libraries': An Exercise in Definition (1968), and Euan Miller's The Library and the Community (1973). These may be more an expression of an aspiration than a reality, but are still useful in denoting the general climate. Evidence for individual promotional efforts are more difficult to trace, but a somewhat random sample, from M.J. Edmonds's 'Children's Book Week, 20-24 August' (1956) to Woodhouse's Great Library Success Stories (1994) is indicative of activities at a local level, and more material may be available through individual archives. The New Zealand Library (now Library and Information) Association has been active in this regard, with nationally organised campaigns, reading and activities, as well as being a publisher of research material. While the latter is easily accessible, the former is harder to identify, and local archives and personal memory may be the most profitable source.

     Many libraries evolved out of private institutes or societies formed in the early days of settlement for the encouragement of civilised intercourse, with their functions later superseded by or subsumed into the official public library service. Histories and archives of organisations such as the Mechanics' Institutes, and the Leys Institute, mainly relating to last century and the first part of this century, recount their history and expand upon their general philosophy. Cultural, quasi-social organisations such as the English Association also played a part. There are a number of archival and published records of such organisations which record their aspirations and achievements.

     Non-government organisations with a more overtly educational bias also contributed to the creation of an interest in print culture. As mentioned, Victorian ideas of self-improvement, sometimes combined with a political, often left-wing, agenda formed the basis of adult educational movements, such as the Workers Educational Association (WEA), Mechanics' Institutes, and university extension programmes, where book groups, literary discussions and lectures were an important feature. Works such as The WEA of New Zealand: What it Is and What it Aims At (1968) deal with the aspirational base of the organisation, whereas works such as J.B. Condliffe's The Beginnings of the WEA (1968) record an anecdotal history. Rachel Barrowman's A Popular Vision: The Arts and the Left in New Zealand 1930-1950 (1991) gives a broad context to the ideological basis of this movement, while histories of individual universities (for example, Keith Sinclair's History of the University of Auckland (1983) and Barrowman's forthcoming history of Victoria University of Wellington) discuss the growth of university extension and continuing education movements.

     Book groups, semi-formal organisations meeting in individual members' homes to discuss a prepared book, seem to have arisen from such organisations; the WEA and university extension departments have been involved in the provision of reading lists, sets of books, study guides and advice. And there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that informal groups, based on this model but without the institutional backing, have been a feature of middle class cultural life for some time. The enormous popularity of reading is both attested to and encouraged by literary festivals such as the Women's Book Festival and the Writers and Readers Week component of the Wellington International Festival of the Arts. Ann Mallinson's Recollections of Five Festivals (1996) gives an account of the latter, while in-house and archival memory of those involved in the former is a source to be tapped.

     Government patronage of the arts has been organised around the Arts Council, previously the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, now Creative New Zealand, and there is a large body of material, both descriptive and philosophical, which has resulted in the Council's responsibility towards encouragement of print culture. Some of this energy has been directed towards writers and thus is only indirectly within the ambit of this discussion, and, in general terms, in the absence of any in-house history, the researcher will have to rely on archival material. But there is a great deal of material dealing with specific initiatives. There are strategic plans and policy discussion documents, such as The What and Why, Who and How of the Arts Council (1968); Policy into Action: the Seventies (1970); A Policy for the Arts (1973); The Arts Council in the Community 1981-88 (1988). The Arts Council has commissioned research in the area of print culture, such as the 1993 Research Report on the Literature Programme: Publishers' Survey (and complementary . . . Writers' Survey ); the purpose of the research is often polemical, as in New Zealand's Best Kept Secret: The Arts (1995), a collection of facts and figures which show the depth and breadth of New Zealanders' involvement in the arts and the impact arts have on everyday life. The Arts Council also supported a number of periodicals: The Arts in Education News-sheet , the Pacific Island News-Sheet, The Arts Advocate , and Arts Times promoting its work, and culture generally in the community.

     What is not recorded is the contentious area of the Arts Council's role as arbiter and also, in a sense, as creator of a distinctive New Zealand culture. Debates over who gets funding for what are associated with the aims and outcomes of creating an interest in print culture, but can probably only be approached through the institutional memory of the participants, and its occasional overflow on to the pages of the newspapers.

     Literary prizes, and patronage generally, have long been a means of enhancing the status of and thereby the interest in literature, and are discussed in more detail in the following section of this chapter. Exhibitions play a similar role by publicising aspects of print culture, whether it be reading or literature, as well as forming a historical record of past attitudes. Descriptive catalogues are sometimes available for the researcher, e.g. New Old Books: An Exhibition of Recent Additions to the de Beer Collection (1996), Working Titles: Books that Shaped New Zealand (1993), and Fabulous and Familiar: Children's Reading in New Zealand Past and Present (1991). Travelling exhibitions have disseminated materials to provincial areas and the Book Council has been active in this respect, often in cooperation with the public library system: examples include 'A Library Exhibition of New Zealand Poetry' (1976) and 'A Library Exhibition of Small Presses in New Zealand' (1977). The National Library has recently also become active in this area, with its Carnegie Libraries exhibition currently on tour. Evidence of earlier events of this kind are, again, likely to be found in archival and local newspaper records.

     The New Zealand Book Council is an organisation overtly dedicated to the promotion of interest in print culture, and has exercised a widespread influence. It has functioned in a number of areas, well represented by archival and published material. Founded in 1972 as part of Unesco's International Book Year, its first brochure stated its aims as 'to encourage the wider use, ownership and enjoyment of books; to encourage research into all aspects of book publication and distribution; to encourage increased provision of books by public authorities of all kinds' ( Booknotes , no.117, Autumn 1997). Its first major initiative was Operation Book Flood in 1973, an exercise carried out in association with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Two Auckland schools notable for low rates of literacy were 'flooded' with over 500 books, and the resulting effects on literacy and reading skills monitored (see Elley, Cowrie and Watson's 1975 interim assessment).

     This set the tone for the Council's role as a publisher of research papers backgrounding print culture and its various manifestations. The Changing Shape of Books: A Collection of Papers Presented at a Seminar Held at Victoria University September 15-16 1973 (1974) summarises the Council's approach. Other Council publications have provided a focus on individual authors, for example Lynley Dodd Talks About her Books (1990). The Writers in Schools scheme is typical of Book Council initiatives; an explanatory booklet (1993) sets out its parameters with the Arts Council. The Writers Visiting Prison project, described in an explanatory handbook (Penny Mahy, 1995), is another. More generally, the Book Council has fostered regard for books and reading in publications such as Brian Brooks's New Zealand Community (1973), 'a list of books which contributors believed had the greatest influence on their lives and their community at large'.

     The Book Council has also been active in promoting commissioned research associated with the promotion of print culture, such as Esslemont's Survey of Book Buyers in New Zealand (1979) and the supplementary pamphlet Book buyers . . . published in the same year. Some of this work has been done in cooperation with the trade, such as Maconie's Survey of Teenage Reading (1969). It has contributed to general social debates, as in Books You Couldn't Buy: Censorship in New Zealand , by C.E. Beeby (1981). The Book Council's quarterly members' newsletter Booknotes (originally Book Counsel ) contains a range of material relevant to print culture, reading and the literary scene, and thus both promotes and records initiatives in these areas of interest.

     A recent non-institutional initiative, author Alan Duff's Books in Homes scheme, also suggests the link between literacy and the promotion of reading. Begun in March 1994, and supported subsequently by government funding, private sector sponsorship and philanthropy, Books in Homes has similarities to the Book Council's Operation Book Flood of the 1970s. In an effort to encourage both literacy and an appreciation of books and reading, 110,000 books have so far been distributed to 111 primary schools for individual pupils to keep. The textbook publisher Scholastic is associated with the project, supplying the books at cost.

     The extent to which the 'self-interest' of purely commercial activities are included here is an interesting question. The publishing industry and bookselling trade may promote themselves from purely profit-oriented motives, but thereby also promote an interest in print culture. Early Whitcombe & Tombs catalogues, primarily pieces of advertising, nonetheless included short essays on literature: on 'New Zealand authorship' by A.H. Grinling in the 1927 catalogue, and 'A survey of the Dominion's productions' by H.H. Driver in 1930. Whitcombe's Monthly Review of Literature , which became Books of Today , appeared from the early 1930s until 1970. Public occasions such as book signings, involvement in book festivals, and cooperation with radio and television book programmes are also relevant. A number of organisations have been associated with the book trade: the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the Association of Booksellers of New Zealand (now Booksellers New Zealand), the New Zealand Book Trade Organisation. Many of these have produced trade periodicals, such as The Publisher and New Zealand Publishing News , and also publications of more general interest, such as the New Zealand Book Publishers Association and the Association of Booksellers' Books of the Year (1964-67), or the Dunedin Publishers Association's Books in Dunedin (1949-62). The Wellington bookseller Roy Parsons published Parsons Packet , part catalogue, part review journal, from 1947 until 1955 of which a selection edited by Parsons and Bridget Williams appeared in 1984.

     As a part of their protection of their industry trade organisations have taken part in debates over issues central to print culture, e.g. censorship and import controls, leaving published and archival records. Market research into aspects of readership has often gone ahead with the industry's support, providing useful statistical data and reference resources such as New Zealand Books in Print (1957-).

     The newspaper industry is an obvious subject for investigation, both in itself—as a transmitter of print culture—but also in the more specifically literary context in promoting book reviews, book pages, literary competitions, and literary advertising. Dennis McEldowney's (1991) and Mark Williams's (forthcoming) chapters on literary patronage and literary criticism in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English are relevant here. There are also a number of local histories of individual newspapers, such as: 100 Years of News: As Presented by the New Zealand Herald 1863-1963 (1963); 120 Years, 1866-1986: The Nelson Evening Mail (1986); 100 Years of Newspapers in Dannevirke (1988). While largely anthologies without any commentary or argument, both point to a body of significant potential research materials.

     There is a close relationship between the encouragement of interest in print culture and the education system, which cannot simply confine itself to the mechanics of literacy, but has always seen a responsibility for the more general promotion of reading as a desirable social activity. Organisations such as the Children's Literature Association of New Zealand have concentrated on providing teachers with resource materials with which to encourage reading: publications such as Gilderdale and Bowden's World Beyond World (1976); McLaren and Fitzgibbon's New Zealand Picture Books (1979); Brenda Knight's Teenread '85 and In and Out of Time (both 1985); and McLaren's New Zealand Books for Children (1980).

     An area where there is little material concerns the history of readership. Australian research which provides fruitful models for New Zealand includes works such as 'The colonial reader observed' and 'Libraries' in The Book in Australia (1988), 'Books, readers and reading' in Australian Cultural History (1992), and Books, Libraries and Readers in Colonial Australia (1985). Dulcie Gillespie-Needham's 1971 PhD thesis 'The colonial and his books: a study of reading in 19th-century New Zealand' is one of few local studies, while Martyn Lyons and Lucy Taksa's Australian Readers Remember (1992) suggests a promising but as yet untapped source of material in this area—that of oral history.

     Autobiography, biography and personal reminiscence are also a source in this area, whether of such people directly associated with books and reading such as Phoebe Meikle, Dorothy Butler, and Alan Duff, and those of teachers, librarians and booksellers. In general, any autobiography or biography of any literate New Zealander is also a potential source as they inevitably encounter print culture.

     Implied in much of this material is a consensus of what constitutes the literate and cultured citizen, and a history of trade and institutional cooperation in pursuit of this commonly agreed good. This is unlikely to be a feature of the future, as a society of far more disparate and contestable values emerges—one in which ethnicity, gender, and class challenge the consensus. Popular culture will similarly question and challenge the notions of high culture implicit in the last century and a half's attitudes towards readership.

Recognition, and rewards of success

The most significant recent published research on literary criticism, book reviewing, and literary prizes and awards, are two essays published in 1991 as part of a broad study of New Zealand literature. They are Dennis McEldowney's 'Publishing, patronage, literary magazines' and John Thomson's discursive bibliography, both in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English , ed. Terry Sturm (1991, second edition forthcoming). Thomson's survey of work in literary history and criticism should be augmented by reference to his entries on individual authors. The genre-based studies which make up the bulk of Sturm's volume also supply the most useful accounts to date of critical activity in their various fields. For the period to 1975, Three Hundred Years of New Zealand Books (1990), compiled by Peter Alcock and William Broughton, provides a useful chronology, with critical work listed under a separate heading from 1956.

     The online database Index New Zealand (INNZ) , launched in 1987 and available through the National Library's Kiwinet, on microfiche and on CD-ROM, selectively indexes articles and book reviews in over 450 current specialist and general interest New Zealand and Pacific periodicals. The Scitec Index, also on Kiwinet, indexes articles and book reviews of interest to the New Zealand scientific community. Titles indexed on these databases range from the Journal of New Zealand Literature (1983-) and New Zealand Libraries (1932-) to the New Zealand Medical Journal (1887-) and New Zealand Sociology (1986-). Prior to 1987, INNZ was published in a printed format. Retrospective indexing of journals onto INNZ is being carried out by the National Library.

Book reviewing and literary criticism

The main focus here is on the reviewing of creative literature in English, particularly at the specialist level. For other disciplines, the primary sources for reviews are the relevant professional journals, many of which are indexed on Kiwinet, as noted above. The development of book reviewing in fields other than New Zealand literature requires further critical analysis. Ray Grover's contribution to the World Bibliographical Series, New Zealand (1980), provides a useful introduction to the professional and general interest journals, current listings of which are to be found in Nielsen Publishing's biannual Media Directory , established in 1976 as the Advertising Directory and Media Planner .

     Until the 1930s, literary criticism in New Zealand was almost entirely restricted to book reviews published in newspapers and magazines. From as early as the 1880s, many of these publications committed themselves to supporting the development of a distinctive New Zealand literature, although until at least the 1940s discussion focused almost entirely on overseas publications, with literary journalists demonstrating a clear preference for poetry and short fiction imitative of British models. Iris M. Park's bibliography, New Zealand Periodicals of Literary Interest (1962), lists the magazine outlets for this type of reviewing. Substantial work on the literary pages of the newspapers remains to be undertaken. Guy Scholefield's Newspapers in New Zealand (1958) makes passing reference to this aspect of their content, and may be taken as a suitable starting point for further work, supplemented by Ross Harvey's Union List of Newspapers preserved in Libraries, Newspaper Offices, Local Authority Offices and Museums in New Zealand (1987). Book reviewing has been a regular feature of New Zealand radio, most significantly in Elizabeth Alley's long-running 'Anthology' programme, succeeded by the late Ross Stevens's 'Bookmarks', and in Kim Hill's 'Speaking Volumes'.

     Prior to the 1940s, few efforts were made to survey the overall state of New Zealand literature. Introductions to anthologies of poetry supplied brief accounts. One of the earliest of these was Alexander and Currie's New Zealand Verse (1906), revised as A Treasury of New Zealand Verse in 1926. The publication in 1930 of both Quentin Pope's Kowhai Gold verse anthology and O.N. Gillespie's New Zealand Short Stories provided a foil against which an emerging group of younger critics and writers were to react. Influenced by British and American literary modernism, this new generation challenged the hegemony of the literary journalists, most effectively by participating in a series of avant garde little magazines and newspapers— Phoenix (1932-33), Tomorrow (1934-40) and Book (1942-47)—which provided for the serious examination of New Zealand literature, as well as encouraging new and innovative creative work. The culmination of this initial movement was the establishment in 1947 of the quarterly magazine Landfall . Its editor, Charles Brasch, drew support for the development of a more rigorous critical climate from other key members of his generation, including Allen Curnow and Denis Glover. Landfall combined with a number of other magazines published during the 1950s and 1960s (including Here & Now (1949-57), Canterbury Lambs (1946-49), Hilltop (1949) and Arachne (1950-51), Numbers (1954-59), Mate (1955-77), and the annual anthology New Zealand Poetry Yearbook (1951-64)) to stimulate an increasingly vigorous local criticism. The New Zealand Listener (1939-) has long provided an important weekly outlet for book reviewing in both literary and other genres, as well as occasional longer pieces of criticism. Again, for the period to 1961, Park's bibliography provides the most accessible guide to these publications.

     Since the 1960s, book reviewing and literary criticism has continued to develop in line with available outlets. The Listener and Landfall have remained important, and new literary magazines to emerge include Argot (1973-75) and Islands , first published in 1972, and a number of university-based periodicals. The most significant of these, The Word is Freed (1969-72), affected a self-consciously revisionist critical stance. This tone was sustained during the 1980s by several little magazines, including Parallax (1982-83), Splash (1984-86), and AND (1983-85). Local and overseas academic journals, including SPAN (1975-), the Journal of New Zealand Literature (1983-), the Journal of Commonwealth Literature (1965-), World Literature Written in English (1971-), and Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada (1989-), continue to give space to much important critical work, as have other magazines with a focus broader than the strictly literary, including Comment (1959-70, 1977-82) and Te Ao Hou (1952-75). The appearance in 1991 of the quarterly New Zealand Books signalled the maturing of book reviewing in all genres, while Stephen Stratford's monthly magazine Quote Unquote , founded in 1993, provided an outlet for both reviewing and literary news. Previously, book trade and library journals were the outlets most explicitly dedicated to book reviewing. Prominent among these are the National Library's bulletin Books to Buy (1966-92) and the New Zealand Book Council's Booknotes , founded in 1981 and still current.

     In the immediate post-World War II period the most substantial fruit of the new critical rigour was Allen Curnow's introduction to his Book of New Zealand Verse 1923-45 (1945, enlarged 1951). In this text and its successor, The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1960), Curnow commanded the critical high ground and established for the first time a credible canon of New Zealand poetry. During subsequent decades, local poetics has largely been constructed in the light of Curnow's work. In fiction, Frank Sargeson's anthology of short stories, Speaking for Ourselves (1945), though lacking an introduction of comparable depth, served a similar purpose and consolidated its editor's influence over the direction taken by New Zealand short fiction through to the 1970s.

     Eric McCormick's 1940 centennial survey Letters and Arts in New Zealand , revised in 1959 as New Zealand Literature , stood as the only book-length historical study until the publication of Patrick Evans's Penguin History of New Zealand Literature in 1990. Evans's work was soon superseded, however, by the more comprehensive Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991), ed. Terry Sturm. Presently under revision, a new edition of this work will include an essay by Mark Williams on New Zealand literary scholarship and criticism.

     A number of important genre studies and collections of essays began to be published from the early 1950s, one of the earliest of which was James K. Baxter's essay Recent Trends in New Zealand Poetry (1951). The School Publications Branch of the Department of Education (now Learning Media Ltd) produced a number of useful genre studies as Post Primary School Bulletins, including M.K. Joseph's The New Zealand Short Story (1956) and W.H. Oliver's Poetry in New Zealand (1960). Likewise, Joan Stevens's comprehensive The New Zealand Novel: 1860-1960 (1961) found a ready market among both secondary and tertiary students. It reappeared in a second edition in 1966, covering the period to 1965. Publishers also sought to supply the student market with several series of critical monographs. These include A.H. & A.W. Reed's New Zealand Profiles, the Oxford University Press's Writers and their Works series, and New York publisher Twayne's World Authors series, which turned its attention to New Zealand from the 1960s with S.R. Daly's study of Katherine Mansfield (1965) and H.W. Rhodes's Frank Sargeson (1969). Kendrick Smithyman's A Way of Saying (1965) began life as a series of essays in the little magazine Mate . It remains the most sustained (if difficult) attempt to date to develop a local, post-Curnovian poetic.

      Essays on New Zealand Literature (1973), ed. Wystan Curnow, was the first attempt to gather together serious critical work in the field. Much of this were drawn from academic journals which had begun to play a key role in the development of ideas about New Zealand literature, including the Journal of Commonwealth Literature and World Literature in English . Cherry Hankin edited two important texts: Critical Essays on the New Zealand Novel (1976) and Critical Essays on the New Zealand Short Story (1982).

     Collections of essays and monographs by individual authors have appeared at regular intervals since the 1970s. Prominent among these are Allen Curnow's Look Back Harder (1986), ed. Peter Simpson, and two collections by C.K. Stead, In the Glass Case (1981) and Answering to the Language (1989). Others are listed by John Thomson in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (p.612 and passim). Such essays are usefully augmented by interviews and biographical writings. In particular, the autobiographies of Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame are exemplary of the genre in New Zealand. Katherine Mansfield has been a major subject for the literary biographer: Antony Alpers's Life (1980) and Sylvia Berkman's Critical Study (1951), supplemented by the collected letters and critical writings, remain required starting points for researchers. Though many other important personalities in the literature remain to be properly treated, several recent literary biographies (Michael King on Frank Sargeson, Keith Ovenden on Dan Davin), although generally not critical in their focus, supply important insights into the personalities behind the work. Beginnings (1980), based on a series of autobiographical essays commissioned by Robin Dudding for Islands , was the first sustained attempt to account for the personal origins of modern New Zealand literature. Collections of interviews with writers also add to this body of resources while theses in the area of New Zealand literature are also of immense value. All supply useful bibliographies, some of which are listed in Bibliographical Work in New Zealand (1980-). Theses are listed in the Union List of Higher Degree Theses in New Zealand Libraries , the most recent edition of which covers the period up to 1992, with current theses now listed on the New Zealand Bibliographic Network (NZBN).

Literary prizes and book awards

McEldowney gives an outline account of state and private support for creative writing in New Zealand in his chapter in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991, pp.574-79, 595-600). Creative New Zealand supplies a listing of special funds, fellowships, awards and scholarships in its publication Funding: A Guide for Applicants (1996) and the Department of Internal Affairs maintains a database of funding sources as part of its Link Centre service.

     Before the establishment of the Literary Fund in 1946, competitions run by newspapers and magazines constituted almost the only regular acknowledgement of success for writers. The university colleges hosted a number of literary prizes, the most coveted of which remains the Macmillan Brown Prize. Substantial state-funded literary patronage began with the Centennial celebrations in 1940, when prizes were offered for work in a wide range of

genres and centennial histories commissioned, including McCormick's pioneering survey, Letters and Art in New Zealand (1940). Largely owing to lobbying by the New Zealand Branch of PEN, the impetus created by the Centennial was sustained, culminating in the establishment of the Literary Fund in 1946. The extent of the Fund's support for writing and publishing during its first 25 years is set out in its report published in 1970 ( New Zealand Literary Fund 1946-70 ). From 1950, the work of the Fund was detailed in the reports of the Department of Internal Affairs, published in the annual AJHR . The Fund was disestablished in 1988, immediately re-emerging as the Literary Fund Advisory Board of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, now Creative New Zealand.

     Literary awards began to be privately sponsored with the establishment of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award for short fiction in 1959, organised by the New Zealand Women Writers' Society with the support of the Bank of New Zealand and still current. Mansfield's name is also associated with the prestigious Memorial Fellowship, a residential fellowship currently funded by the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand and administered by Creative New Zealand. The Wattie Book of the Year was founded in 1968 with the support of the Publishers Association and became the first of an increasing number of such awards. Recent issues of the annual New Zealand Books in Print provide retrospective listings of the winners of the various book awards. These currently include the NZ Post (previously AIM) Children's Book Awards (1983-), the New Zealand Book Awards (established 1976) and the former Wattie (later Goodman Fielder Wattie) Book Award (1968-93), and its successor, the Montana Book Awards. In 1996, the Montana Awards amalgamated with the New Zealand Book Awards to form the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, managed by Booksellers New Zealand and offering prizes in six categories. The criteria for these and other awards are described in New Zealand Books in Print , as are other current sources of assistance for writers, including residential fellowships. The first of these was the Robert Burns Fellowship, set up from anonymous funding (widely attributed to Charles Brasch) at Otago University in 1959. Similar fellowships were established at Canterbury, Victoria, and Auckland Universities between 1978 and 1981, with other tertiary institutions following suit during the following decade.

     Grants for research leading to a publication are available from, among other agencies, the Lottery Grants Board, the Historical Branch of Internal Affairs, the National Library of New Zealand, and the Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington. Scientists and academics can apply for funding to the Marsden Fund, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand, as well as to individual universities and the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors Committee. The major source of funding for creative writing is Creative New Zealand. As well as contributing to the university fellowships, and to the Todd and Louis Johnson New Writers Bursaries, which it also administers, Creative New Zealand distributes significant funds in the form of project grants to writers. These succeed the Literary Fund's system of Scholarships-in-Letters, Bursaries and Project Grants, which were designed to allow writers to work full-time for 12, 6 and 3 months respectively. The New Zealand Authors' Fund compensates registered authors for losses of royalty on books borrowed from New Zealand libraries. In addition, Huia Publishers offer the Huia Short Story Awards for Mäori Writers. Finally, work in children's literature is currently recognised by eight awards briefly described in New Zealand Children's Book Awards: Complete List of Winners and a List of Books Shortlisted 1988-96 (1996).

     Financial incentives and support for publishers are discussed in Chapter 3 under the heading 'Encouragement to publish' within the 'Process of Publishing' section.

Changing trends and special needs

The diversity of print media accommodates different reading and communication needs. Historically, the relationship between text and image has developed according to design trends, technological innovation, and readers' needs.

     Although picture books have long been a part of the children's literature scene, the graphic novel and comic book often cater to both an adult and children's reading market, running the gamut from the purely pictorial to the balanced integration of word and image, to a riot of text and image which replays single-frame, cinematic, story-board design. Toby Burrows and Grant Stone have edited a useful monograph entitled Comics in Australia and New Zealand: The Collections, the Collectors, the Creators (1994). Cartoonist and historian Tim Bollinger's excellent survey of New Zealand comics, 'Comic story' (1995), is part of a larger work in progress on the history of the genre in a specifically New Zealand context. Tim Wilson has also addressed the comics industry in New Zealand and its relationship to overseas publishers in his 1993 article 'Comically, graphically novel'. There is much fascinating research to be done on the publishing environment, political censorship, distribution and readership of comics. The graphic novel is fast becoming a separate area of research overseas; the most recent New Zealand work to claim this title is Maui: Legends of the Outcast written by Robert Sullivan and illustrated by Chris Slane (Godwit Publishing, 1996). Recent articles by Philip Matthews ('Gripping Yarns', 1996) and Vicki Earle ('Gone Fishing', 1996) discuss the collaborative process; Matthews also explains the use of digital technologies in the production phase.

     The livre d'artiste represents a quite different relationship between image and book format. It is not to be confused with 'artists' books' which will be treated below. In origin, the livre d'artiste was developed to foreground the work of famous artists, whether painters, sculptors or printmakers, who were commissioned to illustrate deluxe volumes of prose and poetry, or to produce a suite of prints on a theme, which were subsequently packaged as a high-priced, limited edition, boxed set. The 'coffee table' art book is its modern descendant, using the latest colour reproduction technologies and printing on high-quality art and book papers. Most New Zealand publishers produce such works, although they often use the New Zealand landscape as their subject matter. Craig Potton Publishing has capitalised on the current domestic and international interest in landscapes to produce a wide range of print-based products from coffee table books to calendars, diaries, appointment books and postcards.

     New Zealand publishing has heeded the call of the fine edition in several ways. Each variety appeals to a particular sector of the book buying public, most usually those with unlimited funds for personal entertainment or for investment opportunities. First, the fine press book has a small number of exponents in New Zealand (Bob Gormack, Ron Holloway, Denis Glover, Alan Loney, to name only a few) and a few dedicated collectors. These generally hand-printed books are often reprints of established texts or aim to introduce contemporary or little-known literature; they often include the work of visual artists to create a limited edition collaborative work of art. The quality of craftmanship, the attention to design detail, and the individually numbered and signed edition tend to place these books out of reach of most readers and their resale value is often very much higher than the original price.

     Secondly, there are expensive facsimile editions of rare books otherwise only ever seen in library special collections or on exhibition in galleries. These books are frequently large folio-format works of art, history, botany, zoology, ornithology, or exploration, which boast lavish colour plates, all possible with modern colour reproduction processes. Nova Pacifica's Zoology of the Beagle and Genesis Publication's reprint of Cook's journals are examples of such facsimile editions. David Hedley's involvement with this side of bookselling and collecting is documented in Lynn Payne's article in Signature (1982). These works are closest in kind to the fine art print series, catalysed by an increasing historical awareness in the late 1960s with projects such as Avon Fine Prints and the Turnbull Library Prints. These works are presented as a loose portfolio for individual print display or framing rather than being bound.

     Thirdly, some publishers hold back copies of a trade edition in order to produce luxury, generally full-leather, bindings for presentation copies or for special purchase. Although this habit fell into decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is now becoming more common in an era of corporate gift giving and promotion of products in a climate of multinational competition.

     Finally, the limited edition book or 'quality book' is a recent marketing invention, usually offering original texts presented as authoritative or definitive complete with lavish reproductions, and accompanied by questionable production and investment claims. In contrast to the fine press book, the notion of limited edition in this instance has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the publishers' perception of the market. Although most mainstream publishers, particularly in the buoyant 1970s and early 1980s, tried their hand at one if not more of these high-risk publications, several set themselves up to deal exclusively as publishers and/or distributors: Alister Taylor, Millwood Press, the Graphic Society of New Zealand, David Hedley. The career of Alister Taylor in particular has been well documented in the media as exemplifying the risks involved in this form of publication. As yet, fascination with the man's biographical details has generally thwarted the critical detachment necessary to examine the social and economic implications of the genre. Carroll du Chateau's Metro article (1991a) provides a good starting point for research and includes a useful select bibliography of Taylor's publications, many of which, such as the 'Notable Thoroughbreds' series, The New Zealander, Eugene von Guerard , and Bullshit & Jellybeans have influenced the course of New Zealand publishing and book marketing. The investment possibilities of the limited edition, deluxe book have been revived in the late 1990s with Peter Hallett's 'Heritage 2000' project. The series of 28 books chronicling New Zealand's natural and cultural heritage to be published to celebrate the millenium is described in Tod's article 'Books for the millenium' (1996). The relationship of book values to developments in electronic media, marketing, and commerce are also worth exploring with the limited edition or quality book. The introduction to the 4th edition of Glenn Haszard's New Zealand Book Values (1996) registers these changes and a new range of possibilities.

     Artists' books have a rich critical literature overseas and have only recently been assessed in New Zealand. Unlike the genres noted above, the artist's book sets out to redefine the structure of the book and, in particular, the reading experience. As the artist engages conceptually with the form, the result can be an eclectic combination of unusual materials, unorthodox construction, and an intensive interrogation of the assumptions behind the book as print or image-based communication medium. Gail Keefe's award-winning 1988 essay 'Artists' books' documents the New Zealand situation, both in terms of the increasing numbers of artists exploring this new medium and the implications for collection development policy in libraries, art galleries and museums. Daniella Aleh's The Local Environment (1995) builds upon Keefe's work and brings it up to the present. Exhibition catalogues of artists' books shows are a necessary primary resource, examples being Visual Diaries/Artists' Books (1984), ANZART '85 Artists' Book Show , Opening up the Book (1993), as are interviews with the individual artists. Similarly, reviews of book shows and analysis of the design issues in Art New Zealand and New Zealand Craft contribute to the expanding field of research. As more polytechnics and art schools recognise the global acceleration of interest in and expertise with the artist's book medium, they are including book arts modules or degree majors in their curricula.

     If artists have endeavoured to redefine the book, books themselves have also come under pressure from other communication media. In 1973, the New Zealand Book Council sponsored a seminar whose proceedings were published as The Changing Shape of Books . Speakers addressed a number of issues: literacy, educational methods, reading habits, library resources and the new format of the printed word. Keith Sinclair's balanced introduction notes the panic which some felt at the time due to the perceived threat to books posed by television and audio-visual aids. Euan M. Miller picks up the subject in his talk entitled 'A pretty girl on the jacket, but . . .' (1974) Contrary to public paranoia, Miller proves that the new technologies enhance the reading experience, neither substitute for nor displace it. He quotes figures from the Dunedin Public Library which demonstrate that borrowing records for books increase as a result of documentaries, docudramas, and dramatisations of novels and plays on television and movie screen. This trend has continued to the present day where the public is more apt to see the dramatisation of a novel or play first on the television, as a video, or in the movie theatre, than read the book itself; a whole publishing industry of the book of the movie of the book has sprung up as a consequence, each step necessarily moving further away from the originating text.

     As readers demand 'a high visual content' (Miller, p.71) in the display of print-based communication resources, books with colour reproductions, tables and statistics, headings and subheadings, columns and boxes are more frequently borrowed or purchased. The Hamlyn series of history books is often cited as a model for the new way of communicating information and educating. Technological developments in the printing industry, particularly the improved and affordable colour reproduction technology, enables these information needs to be fulfilled. Miller's 1973 assessment of three multimedia packages reflects the new design and format of print communication: educational kitsets combining paper-based notes, commentaries and images with records and filmstrips; Jackdaw Historical Series of facsimile material gathered in portfolio folders; the 'Community '73' series of mixed media booklets and cards collected on a common theme.

     Miller notes, however, that although the book and its associated forms are more readily accessible to the reading public, there has been a decline in the content quality (p.73). This must also be extended to book and print-based design. Today's book designers are more often freelance than part of the in-house publishing environment. The increasing number of self-publishing and desktop publishing ventures which do not utilise trained designers have resulted in a loss of communication effectiveness, efficiency and style.

     Today, the reading debate must also accommodate electronic technologies, particularly that of computer multimedia. Computing is introduced at an early age to encourage learning through the playing of computer games, and to teach using the full multimedia potential of the computer. As well as specialist reference tools (such as indexes and legal texts) New Zealand multi-media CD-ROM publications for which there are also hard-copy print equivalents include the TVNZ New Zealand Encyclopedia (1994, 2nd ed. 1996; still available in a paper edition as the Bateman New Zealand Encyclopedia ), and Coast to Coast (1995) which incorporates the complete texts of Diana and Jeremy Pope's Mobil New Zealand Travel Guide volumes. Not only do the differing titles create bibliographic challenges, but a different distribution process applies to CD-ROM products, which are more often sold through computer shops or by mail order than through traditional bookshops. The Press (Christchurch) is the first New Zealand metropolitan newspaper to have a specially designed electronic version on the World Wide Web. While the textual content of print and electronic versions may be the same, additional video and sound clips, and inbuilt search facilities create a different total 'publication'. New ways of reading, writing, and thinking result from the technological changes, and further investigation and research is required in this area.

     Although the bicultural dimension of New Zealand has only recently been signalled by a greater visible use of bilingual texts in official documentation and signage, the publishing industry is increasing its output of bi-and monolingual texts in Mäori and a wide array of Pacific Island languages. Huia Publishers and Pasifika Press are the two most notable recent examples; both have recognised a growing readers' need for the provision of monolingual publications for the exploration of cultural identity, and bilingual publications for the less than fluent or learning reader. Whether the book as specialist container for information can be redefined successfully for cultures in which the book is an introduced species is questionable; Sharon Dell's provocative article 'The Maori book or the book in Maori' (1987) suggests that a new Mäori specific 'book' form may be evolving to accommodate language, identity and reading needs. It is one, significantly, that makes great use of the visual image, large format text and appears in extremely small numbers, often as unique, hand-rendered copies. New Zealand's multicultural heritage and experience as manifested in books and language publications remains to be explored.

     For the visually and hearing impaired, and for those with physical disabilities, the traditional book format provides a distinctive challenge for which alternative media have been developed to satisfy these readers' needs. For those who are print-handicapped readers or for those who through sight impairment or physical disability are unable to read, hold or turn the pages of a standard book, the National Library of New Zealand's Print Handicapped Resource Unit in Palmerston North provides audio book lending and purchasing services. In addition, the Unit has published several editions of Talking Books/Audio Books for Print Handicapped Readers since 1987. Each author/title entry in the catalogue includes précis of text, performance reader, recommended age, playing time, publisher, and number of cassettes. Public libraries, booksellers, and stationers are increasing their number of audio books both for the print-handicapped and for those who prefer the listening to the reading experience. The Auckland firm Word Pictures targets the commuter market for their recorded book readings and specialises in New Zealand writers, calling themselves the 'Voice of New Zealand'.

     The history of Braille books and their publication in New Zealand has yet to be written, although two useful centenary histories of the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, one by Ken Catran and Penny Hansen (1992), the other by Eleanor White (1990), together provide a good point of departure. Large print books are published for the visually impaired and are available at lending libraries throughout the country. Although published overseas (usually Britain or the United States), New Zealand literature figures strongly in these publications. A shortlist of authors translated into the large print medium includes Margaret Mahy (by far the most titles), Ngaio Marsh, Janet Frame, Maurice Gee, Fiona Kidman, and Maurice Shadbolt. Their publication in this specialist format documents and reflects current reading tastes, audience demographics and the public profile of New Zealand writers.

     Although it is primarily the spoken word which is affected by deafness, the education for deaf and deaf/mute readers in the written language, the written language experience for deaf children, the nature of the reading experience for the hearing impaired, and the use of new technologies for communication are all areas currently under scrutiny. Library services for the deaf and hearing impaired and the use of the traditional book as a tool for education are a fruitful area of study. Numerous histories of deaf institutions and associations have been written and a number of newsletters continue to be published. These are a rich and underutilised resource for exploring the development of special print-based materials—their production, publication, distribution and reading. Of particular note is the increasing number of print-based or electronic books used to tell—in words and images—personal stories of the hearing impaired, or to educate other readers about the deaf experience.

     The development, standardisation and recognition of New Zealand Sign Language has led to the forthcoming Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language spearheaded by Graeme Kennedy at Victoria University of Wellington. This publication builds upon research from the late 1980s funded by the National Foundation for the Deaf and the New Zealand Association for the Deaf. The implications of such a book of written 'word-speak' and its visual reading experience for the education of deaf and non-deaf alike is significant for understanding the breadth and complexity of the field of print culture.

Access tools

Access tools are the means by which information relating to print culture can be identified and located. New Zealand has a wide range of these tools to access the wide range of print culture items. The most important of these are bibliographies and indexes (including resources such as library or publishers' catalogues and listings of books in print). General reference sources (without a specific print culture purpose) may be useful starting points for either general background or specific types of information, e.g. biographical.

Bibliographies and indexes

A useful overview of these, though now rather dated, can be found in J.E. Traue's New Zealand Studies: A Guide to Bibliographic Resources (1985). As well as general guides, it very briefly covers the following formats: printed monographs, printed serials, theses, manuscripts, music, Mäori music, oral history, film, visual images and maps.

     Bibliographies may be comprehensive in scope, such as a national bibliography, or limited by format such as theses, newspapers or Mäori printed material. Bibliographies on specific subject areas are outside the scope of this section.

     The most significant New Zealand bibliography is the six-volume New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960 (1969-85) compiled by A.G. Bagnall. As well as being a listing of New Zealand imprints it includes books and pamphlets published overseas with New Zealand content. This replaces earlier attempts at comprehensive bibliography, in particular the work of T.M. Hocken (1909) supplemented by A.H. Johnstone (1927) and L.J.B. Chapple (1938) and also that of A.S. Thomson (1859) and J. Collier (1889). Although heavily inclusive, some categories of material are excluded—these are listed fully in the introduction to volume 2—such as school textbooks, local election leaflets and parliamentary papers. Volume 1 (in two physical parts) covering the period to 1889 has full bibliographic description, annotations, and the library symbol where the copy was seen. Indexes contain subject entries, titles, added entries for joint authors, illustrators and other types of responsibility, and a chronological index. Volume 5 contains addenda, and an index to the 1890-1960 volumes.

     Material after 1960 can be found in the annual 'Current National Bibliography', issued by the National Library Service until the formation of the National Library of New Zealand (in 1965) which continued to produce the New Zealand National Bibliography (NZNB) . It appeared in print form until 1983 and is now available in microfiche or online through the New Zealand Bibliographic Network (NZBN). In addition to monographs NZNB lists new, changed and ceased serial titles, as well as maps, music, art prints and sound recordings.

     Works currently available for sale are listed in New Zealand Books in Print (1957-), published irregularly at first, but now annual, and complemented by the specialist New Zealand Children's Books in Print (1988-). Individual publishers' catalogues may also be useful.

     The New Zealand Library Association (NZLA) published a number of useful items including John Harris's Guide to New Zealand Reference Material and other Sources of Information (2nd ed. 1950, with supplements in 1951 and 1957). An attempt was made by Massey University Library in the 1970s to update this, but after eight subject parts had appeared the project was abandoned. Another NZLA venture, A Bibliography of New Zealand Bibliographies (1967) compiled by Simon Cauchi, is still a good starting point for early material. A useful annual production for information on recent and current work, compiled by Tony Millett and published by Waikato University since 1980, is Bibliographical Work in New Zealand: Work in Progress and Work Published .

     A bird's-eye view of material up to the late 1970s can be found in the New Zealand volume of the World Bibliographic Series (1980) compiled by Ray Grover. This useful volume contains 878 annotated entries arranged in 40 broad subject groupings covering aspects of both the people and the country designed to express the culture. Most of the items are monographs, though some periodical articles are included when they are more topical. This publication is currently being updated.

     There is no comprehensive listing of New Zealand serials though details of recently published titles can be found on NZBN, and Nielsen Publishing's biannual Media Directory (founded in 1976 as the Advertising Directory and Media Planner ) is a useful source of information on current periodicals (by subject) and newspapers, including community newspapers. The Union List of Serials in New Zealand Libraries (1970 and 1975 supplement) contains full bibliographic information for earlier titles and also where they are held.

     Although there is no comprehensive bibliography of New Zealand newspapers a good substitute is Ross Harvey's Union List of Newspapers Preserved in Libraries, Newspaper Offices and Museums in New Zealand (1987). Newspapers published in New Zealand are arranged by town of publication and then by title. A title index is provided and microform holdings are also noted.

     The bibliographic control for theses submitted to New Zealand universities is fairly comprehensive. Originally published in 1965 as the Union List of Theses of the University of New Zealand, 1910-54 there have been nine supplements taking coverage up to 1992, with current theses being catalogued on NZBN. The Union List and supplements are arranged in broad subject groups with author indexes and subject indexes after 1962. All the universities provide some regular form of listing for recently presented theses, some are in the calendar and others are produced more informally.

     Bibliographical control of manuscripts and archives is not comprehensive and it is particularly difficult to find the holdings of many small repositories.

In volume 1 of the Union Catalogue of New Zealand and Pacific Manuscripts in New Zealand Libraries (1968) is an incomplete listing of the holdings of a number of institutions other than the Alexander Turnbull Library, the holdings of which appear in volume 2 (1969). In 1979 another attempt was made to list this material but this time in a looseleaf format with comprehensive indexes by time, area subject and proper names. The National Register of Archives and Manuscripts in New Zealand appeared irregularly in paper and microfiche form until December 1992, but the publication is currently suspended as there have been difficulties with many smaller institutions being unable to submit information. A working group is currently looking at this and it is hoped it will be possible to provide some online access in a less complex form. Archifacts , the journal of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ) lists recent collections of archives, and the Alexander Turnbull Library's manuscript acquisitions are listed in the Turnbull Library Record .

     Early Mäori imprints are listed in H.W. Williams's Bibliography of Printed Maori to 1900 (1924, supplement 1928) was updated by an unpublished typescript which includes material to 1945, prepared by A.D. Sommerville as a library school bibliography. Entries are arranged in chronological order with title pages bibliographically transcribed, and useful notes describing contents. The Alexander Turnbull Library is working on a complete revision incorporating a large amount of new information, including entries for many items unknown to Williams. The new publication, expected within two years, will be in book form.

     Although there is no general bibliography of maps, some useful publications dealing with specialised areas have been produced. A notable contribution has been by R.P. Hargreaves who between 1962 and 1971 produced eight compilations, mainly dealing with 19th-century material, including: French Explorers' Maps of New Zealand; Maps of New Zealand Appearing in British Parliamentary Papers and Maps in New Zealand Provincial Council Papers . For older maps the best means of access is through the catalogues of libraries such as Alexander Turnbull Library and the Hocken Library; other map collections can be located through The Directory of New Zealand Map Collections (1989). Maps currently produced have been included in the current New Zealand National Bibliography since 1966 as a continuation of the map section of Copyright Publications (1949-65).

     For accessing the contents of New Zealand periodical literature, the most important and useful tool is Index to New Zealand Periodicals (1941-86) and its successor Index New Zealand (INNZ , 1987-). The coverage of periodicals and the subject headings used have changed over time, with earlier volumes tending to concentrate on the needs of public libraries. The final volume of the Index in 1986 states in the introduction that it includes 186 titles and covers only articles of lasting value. Articles relating to New Zealand in overseas journals are included, as well as some conference proceedings. The emphasis is on humanities and social science particularly after 1980 when New Zealand Science Abstracts was established to cover scientific material.

     The Index appeared in annual paper volumes and on microfiche, but was not cumulated, so each year must be searched individually. INNZ is an online database on the National Library's Kiwinet service from which annual microfiche issues have been produced with a cumulation covering 1987-91. In 1994 a CD-ROM version was produced which is now updated quarterly. Some periodicals are comprehensively indexed while others may be covered selectively, as only articles of at least half a page in length are included. Some material is covered from major metropolitan newspapers as well as biographical material from some 20 provincial newspapers. Book reviews are listed under the book title, continuing the practice of including book reviews in the earlier Index .

     Scholarly journals in the social sciences, art and humanities are indexed as well as some monographs in series, chapters in books, theses and conferences in these disciplines. All entries for this research-type material include an abstract in a similar fashion to the three annual volumes of New Zealand Social Science Research Abstracts which cover material from 1985 to 1987. Newzindex (1979-) is a monthly index (also available on Kiwinet) of New Zealand business and trade articles with selected items from magazines, newsletters and newspapers.

     Parliamentary papers and other official publications are a rich source of information on a very broad range of topics of print culture interest, referred to throughout this book. Such material can be complex to identify and trace, but J.B. Ringer's Introduction to New Zealand Government (1991) is an invaluable guide to anyone exploring this material.

     Access to books printed before 1801 and held in New Zealand libraries has been greatly improved by the publication of Early Imprints in New Zealand Libraries: A Finding List of Books Printed before 1801 held in the Wellington Region (1995). This publication, part of the Australian and New Zealand Early Imprints Project, is intended as a guide to the location of holdings. Individual entries are brief, with reference to authoritative bibliographies. Many of the items are held in the Alexander Turnbull Library, but items from 18 other libraries in the lower North Island are also included. The Alexander Turnbull Library also holds the master file of records of holdings elsewhere in New Zealand, some of which are searchable on the Internet via the British Library's ESTC database.

General reference sources

A good general starting point for any researcher is Studying New Zealand History (2nd ed. 1992) by G.A. Wood and revised by Cauchi. Although the emphasis is on historical research the coverage is broad enough to encompass theatre and music. A third edition is expected shortly. The annual New Zealand Official Yearbook (1893-) is an essential New Zealand current reference work, providing a vast amount of commentary on virtually every aspect of life in New Zealand. Consulting volumes over a period of time offers a handy means of tracking changes in policy and statistical information. The 1990 sesquicentennial issue is particularly valuable as it was enhanced by historical surveys and extracts from earlier volumes.

     The most comprehensive encyclopaedia is still A.H. McLintock's three-volume Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966), which includes biographical and subject entries, and is well indexed. Although dated, and articles are of varying quality, no revised edition is planned. The illustrated part-work publication New Zealand's Heritage (1971-73) includes some articles of relevance to New Zealand print culture history.

     Now of historic interest, the six-volume Cyclopedia of New Zealand: Industrial, Descriptive, Historical, Biographical, Facts, Figures, Illustrations (1897-1908) is mainly useful for biographical information (arranged by locality) on individuals and businesses, though not entirely trustworthy. Directories (dating from the 1840s onwards) provide some basic information on commercial activities; refer to Hansen's Directory Directory (1992) for further assistance in this area of research.

     The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990-) provides the first comprehensive and authoritative approach to biographical information; three of the planned five volumes have been produced so far, covering from 1769 to 1920. The project is due for completion in 2000, with the final volume to cover to 1960, and a major database of information available to researchers has been compiled in the process. The selection policy is broader than similar overseas projects and the Categories Index provides a subject approach to the entries, a number of which are relevant to print culture. The Book of New Zealand Women: Ko Kui ma te Kaupapa (1991) is a biographical dictionary also with a broad approach and a detailed subject index. Oral history archives could also be investigated as a source of unpublished information.

     Pictorial material can be approached through major organised institutional collections (such as the Alexander Turnbull Library's, now also available on the Internet through its Timeframes service, or the New Zealand Film Archive), newspaper archives, and commercial photographic libraries.