University of Virginia Library

4. Distribution

The simplest way to distribute a printed work is for an author to deliver copies of his or her own work directly to the reader. This method has always been the favoured or desperate last resort of some. (Examples of self publishing, which may include distribution, are to be found elsewhere in this book.) However, even before the invention of printing, the chain of textual transmission linking author and reader was lengthened by the bringing in of intermediaries. In the early days of printing the tasks of production and distribution could still be managed by one person not the author, typically the master printer, who would commission the author, employ the production workers, and oversee distribution, wholesale and retail. In the small colonial societies of 19th-century New Zealand this comparative lack of specialisation remained operative long after it had gone out in metropolitan centres overseas. However, by the early years of the 20th century the divisions of function which are now the commercial norm were becoming distinct, in line with practice in larger economies overseas.

     Under the broad heading of distribution are considered three topics, large in themselves: bookselling, libraries, and book buying and book collecting. Space allotted to these reflects not so much their importance as the amount and quality of scholarly work devoted to them: bookselling and book buying in particular have been relatively little studied.

     Bookselling , the trade concerned with the distribution of printed works, is likewise conveniently considered under three heads. First comes a survey of patterns of historical change. For instance, the small mixed business of the mid 19th century had a century later evolved into the specialist bookshop or been overtaken by the spread of national chains. Secondly, the people in the trade are remembered, some for their exceptional drive or devotion to the printed word. Finally, trade regulation in its various aspects—import licensing for one—is dealt with. Booksellers have to cope more than many other sellers of goods with social and political as well as economic pressures, notoriously those to do with censorship.

     Libraries of many kinds obviously have a distinct function among the processes of dissemination. The ratepayer-funded public libraries, for instance, by collecting and making available a range of printed and other materials to all members of their communities, at little or no charge to individual users, serve cultural rather than strictly commercial values. These institutions were for the most part 20th-century creations. Their 19th-century forerunners were the Athenaeums and Mechanics' Institutes, which have a fascinating history of their own.

     Book buyers and book collectors are the most obvious recipients of print. However, it should not be forgotten that our letterboxes are witness to a never-ending stream of ephemeral material, usually unsolicited. Book collectors are important to historians because in these remarkable few may be detected the inclination of countless common readers, less visible, financially less well-endowed, and less obsessive. The collections built up by such as Alexander Turnbull have a value to society as a whole. They usually are opened to others while still in private ownership, and after the owner's death may be bequeathed to institutions. Collections, even if dispersed, may be reconstructed from sale or book auction catalogues. The commercial agents who serve the collection builders, and the societies of like-minded book lovers also deserve attention.

Bookselling

History

Among the cultural functions of print, bookselling completes a process that begins with printing and continues with publishing. It follows that the histories of these three components are closely related.

     In New Zealand the shape of bookselling has been influenced especially by the settlement of the country which began long after the publishing of books and newspapers had been established in the countries of emigration. The impulse to improve their prospects that prompted immigrants to action also involved further education and the early days of settlement were characterised by the proliferation of libraries and a variety of educational institutions. This desire for knowledge and the consequent need for books was formalised to some extent by the Education Act 1877, and by the mid 1880s almost three-quarters of the country's population of about half a million could read and write.

     In such an environment bookselling looked to have a good future. Providing material for learning, replacing books that had to be sold to help finance emigration, and offering literary consolation for the isolation from a culture left behind, guaranteed a flourishing trade. From 1850, when Charlotte Godley and her husband rarely encountered the treat of new books, to 1872, when Anthony Trollope on a visit commented on the small towns with libraries, and stated that 'Carlyle, Macaulay and Dickens are certainly better known to small communities in New Zealand than they are to similar congregations of men and women at home', the availability of books had increased rapidly. However, given that in 1890 20% of the population lived in the four main centres and that the remainder were to be found in country settlements, bookselling was for the most part a function of general retail establishments. Similarly, circulating libraries, which usually existed as one facet of a retailer's activity, were a feature of commercial life from the 1860s.

     The commercial manifestation of print culture was also found in the development of religious bookshops. This followed naturally from the country's church-sponsored settlements and the evangelical spirit in general. The Presbyterian Bookroom chain, the British and Foreign Bible Society's depots along with Catholic and Methodist bookshops were established and have continued for the most to the present. A Christian Booksellers' Association was formed in 1974.

     In addition to bookshops, auctioneering contributed to making books available from the earliest days of settlement. Stock, both new and secondhand, would be ordered from England. In 1877 J.H. Bethune & Co. was established in Wellington and this signified a more specialised approach to auctioneering, servicing not only the general population with overseas publications but also the bibliophile and archival libraries with rare New Zealand volumes and manuscripts.

     The latter decades of the 19th century saw the continuing growth of the country's population with particular consequences for the world of print. Following upon the Education Act 1877 the publishing and selling of educational books increased substantially and the rapid extension of the railway system through Julius Vogel's public works programme produced a network of railway station bookstalls. By the end of the century, larger bookselling firms were beginning to feature, the obvious example being Whitcombe & Tombs, which originated in Christchurch and began to buy up other businesses elsewhere in New Zealand. G.H. Bennett and Co. of Palmerston North, established in 1891, and Carthew's bookshop, established in Feilding in 1879, were two notable larger businesses, both incidentally with strong family traditions.

     During that part of the 20th century up to the end of World War II, bookselling was characterised by the growth of Whitcombe & Tombs as a national chain, the development of London Bookshops as a small chain which included lending libraries, and the growth of a number of solid independents. This period also saw the rise of political bookshops and their eventual replacement from the 1960s by the emergence of specialist bookshops which represented the later and continuing development in bookselling. These specialisations include women's studies (Kate Sheppard Bookshop, Christchurch, and Women's Bookshop, Auckland), ethnic interests (Pasifika Books, Auckland), children's books (Dorothy Butler, Auckland, among others), technical and medical publications, environmental studies, astrology, alternative life style and new age material. Somewhat more general specialists include Scorpio Books in Christchurch, the various university bookshops—apart from their textbook stock—and Unity Books in Wellington and Auckland. The Australian chain of Dymocks has opened shops in Auckland, Wellington and elsewhere since 1994, challenging the Whitcoulls/London Bookshops virtual monopoly in the general bookshop business.

     The other main development in the distribution of print in book form is that of wholesaling, which has a much shorter history than that of retailing.

Until World War II there were no wholesale bookselling establishments such as exist at present. Importation had been undertaken since the 1870s by a few of the more enterprising booksellers until agents appointed by overseas publishers began calling on booksellers with publishers' lists, obtaining orders and sending them on to their principals. Eventually some publishers decided to carry wholesale stock in New Zealand in addition to supplying books direct to booksellers (i.e. filling orders obtained by agents). Among those who established a wholesale presence were Collins (now HarperCollins), Penguin Books, Hodder and Stoughton (now Hodder Moa Beckett), William Heinemann, and Hutchinson. Firms set up to represent publishers were Hicks Smith, Oswald-Sealy and Leonard Fullerton Ltd. Altogether a good range of British publishing was made available in this way. Random House and Transworld Publishers are recent significant additions to the number of larger wholesalers.

     The wholesaling of New Zealand publications was for a long time mainly in the hands of Whitcombe & Tombs and A.H. & A.W. Reed, but by the 1990s the former (now called Whitcoulls) had ceased wholesaling, and Reeds had been taken over by an international company, although still wholesaling. The place of these two firms pre-eminent since the 1970s had steadily been superseded by a growing number of smaller companies wholesaling a much wider range of material. The wholesale supplies of magazines, as distinct from books, was for many years largely in the hands of Gordon & Gotch. This firm, which had humble beginnings in the Victorian goldfields in the 19th century, became the dominant supplier to both newsagents and booksellers in Australia and later throughout New Zealand. Competition in recent times has broadened the range of titles and added numerous international newspapers. One recent development has been the stocking of magazines (alongside paperbacks) by supermarkets.

     There were two other factors that influenced the decision to hold local wholesale stock. The first was import licensing imposed in the 1930s and in place until 1963. Licences set limits to a bookseller's capacity to import books and represented a restriction on his business. New licences and increases to existing licences were difficult to obtain, resulting in wholesalers being turned to more and more. The second factor was that for some years there had been an increasing number of accounts opened by local booksellers with overseas publishers and these were proving to be uneconomic to service.

     From this arose closed market operations which required that some titles or imprints be purchased by the bookseller only from a New Zealand wholesaler while other books not necessarily stocked in New Zealand could still be imported. Both means of supply were effected by orders taken from the bookseller by the wholesaler's representative, or by orders initiated by the bookseller. The 1990s has seen the loosening of some of these arrangements and the increasing use of overseas wholesalers by a number of more innovative booksellers. Electronic technology and less costly air freight has provided a global aspect to bookselling not possible until the last few years. Books from virtually anywhere are expected to be supplied quickly, and this has put new demands on both wholesaler and retailer. These changes have also put pressure on market rights, a system whereby an originating publisher, say in the United States, would sell the right to publish a title to a British publisher who would be entitled to sell it in Commonwealth countries without competition from the American edition. This system, which was modified during and after the 1970s because of its restrictiveness and monopoly implications, continues nevertheless to influence book importing.

General studies

'The trade of bookselling . . . remains one of the great unknowns of research into cultural history.' So remarked a flier advertising an international conference on bookselling in France held in 1996. D.F. McKenzie and K.A. Coleridge commented similarly about New Zealand in their introduction to Printing, Bookselling and their Allied Trades in New Zealand c.1900: Extracts from the Cyclopedia of New Zealand (1980). However there is one valuable exception. In 1993, Anna and Max Rogers published Turning the Pages: The Story of Bookselling in New Zealand . The four parts deal in turn with the metropolitan centres, the regions, the chains, and with 'issues' 1920s to 1990s. The authors properly insist that to compile a 'complete history . . . would involve many years of research'. (Especial thanks are due to the authors and publisher for permitting substantial use of their work in the preparation of this essay.) Two papers offer general reflections. Harold White, 'The distribution of books in New Zealand', a paper prepared for the seminar 'The Changing Shape of Books' held at Victoria University of Wellington in 1973 discusses bookshop profitability and the myths of bookselling. In 1996 the economist Brian Easton gave a paper 'Bookshops and political shops' at the conference of Booksellers New Zealand, in which he discussed the variety of Wellington's bookshops in order to illustrate the political change to MMP.

People

So much for a brief history of bookselling to the present. Integral to the trade's development is the enterprise of significant players over the years and the demonstration of their differing talents.

     George Whitcombe established his first bookshop (with George Tombs, printer) in Christchurch in 1882 and then purchased existing businesses in Dunedin (1890), Wellington (1894) and Auckland (1916). At one stage he had four branches in Australia. In 1889 he had set up a shop in London for the purpose of keeping in close contact with British publishers. For many years this branch filled orders from Whitcombe's New Zealand shops and despatched books from London until its closure in 1988.

     Bertie Whitcombe, the eldest son, took over as managing director in 1917 and remained a driving force of this, the country's first national bookselling chain, until his retirement in the early 1960s. As branches continued to be opened until the 1990s and confirmed the dominant presence of the chain, the foundation laid by George Whitcombe was proving to be especially sound. The Education Act 1877 provided the opportunity for the printing and publishing of texts appropriate to New Zealand conditions. Accordingly, a printing works was established in Christchurch to provide textbooks, school readers and stationery. This material was sold not only in Whitcombe & Tombs shops, but also throughout the country.

     The other chain of consequence was that of London Bookshops. This began with Karo Emanuel opening a lending library in Christchurch in 1935. He opened other such libraries in various towns and cities in the years that followed. By the early 1950s book retailing had taken its place alongside the lending libraries and gradually replaced the latter during the 1960s and 1970s. The Emanuel sons, David and Peter, had supervised this conversion and the subsequent opening of branches in large shopping centres. An important development that can be credited to the Emanuels was the importation of remaindered books on a scale not seen before. (Remainders are books sold by publishers much below published price, after the market for the book at full price has been effectively exhausted.)

     South's Book Depots was a chain established by Harry South in Wellington in 1932. Branches were opened around the country during the following 20 years as well as 18 branches of the Times Book Club (between 1937 and 1941). In 1948 the club was absorbed into South's Book Depot Ltd. The expansion of the enterprise eventually led to an over-stretching of resources and in 1953 the chain was sold to Whitcombe's. The last shop was closed in 1966.

     Among individual booksellers of influence the names of Roy Parsons and Blackwood Paul predominate. Roy Parsons opened his first bookshop in Wellington in 1947 and continued as an active bookseller until his death in 1991. His wish to sell 'good' books coincided with a dearth of such stock in postwar Wellington. His business grew quickly. In spite of having to move premises several times and having to suffer the restrictions of import licences, his stocking of serious, quality reading never faltered, and authors and subjects rarely, if ever, found in other bookshops became available to the reading public on a regular basis. An example was Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy , which sold over 200 copies. Roy Parsons as a bookseller added more than most to the cultural life of his city. But beyond this he contributed to the book trade as a whole through his years as councillor and president of the Booksellers' Association. He was as complete a bookseller as one is likely to find: a literary man, a competent businessman and an effective politician and administrator for the book trade.

     Paul's Book Arcade was opened in Hamilton in 1911 by William Paul. His son, Blackwood, joined the business in 1933 to begin his bookselling career in a bookshop that later was considered by two prominent British publishers to be one of the 14 best bookshops in the world. As with Parsons, Paul built up a quality stock. In addition, he had before the war become the principal agent in New Zealand for the socialist Left Book Club. In 1945 he and his wife began publishing, and after 19 years and an impressive list of titles a separate publishing company, Blackwood & Janet Paul, was formed. This was later taken over by the Longman Group. In 1953 a separate educational bookshop was opened in Hamilton, and in 1955 a second bookshop, this time in Auckland. Paul himself died in 1965 and the business, after experiencing financial difficulties, closed in 1972. In his 30 years in the book trade he made a major contribution to the realisation of new standards in bookselling.

     There have been many booksellers who have worked hard and, with particular skills, have established strong, effective and sometimes long-lived businesses which have not necessarily required a location in one of the four main centres in order to flourish. Carthew's in Feilding, Bennett's in Palmerston North, Marion Middlemiss in Marton, Hedley's in Masterton and Budden's in Motueka are examples of such bookshops. Whether it has been a family tradition or the result of growing personal goodwill that has made them successful, there has also been a degree of dedication and a clear love of books that has marked them out. City bookshops that have some of these qualities are Dorothy Butler's in Auckland with its influential specialisation in children's books, and Hyndman's in Dunedin trading since 1937 with a pedigree originating in Invercargill in 1906. An early arrival in Dunedin who rose to prominence in the city was Joseph Braithwaite, who opened a small bookshop in 1863, and then, on moving to larger premises in 1883, became Braithwaite's Book Arcade. The business continued until 1928.

     University, cooperative, and secondhand bookshops have also made their mark. The University of Otago in Dunedin has a larger place in that city's life than those elsewhere in the country and the University Bookshop reflects this. Opened in the mid 1940s, managed from 1951 by John Griffin and then owned by him from 1956 until its sale to Whitcoulls in 1962, the shop flourished in conjunction with the growth of the universities generally in the 1950s and 1960s. Later working for Whitcoulls, John Griffin was involved in the opening a bookshop at the University of Auckland in 1965 and the reopening of one at the University of Canterbury in 1971. These three university bookshops are owned 50:50 by Whitcoulls and the students. What has characterised these shops and those on other campuses is the increased stockholding, since the 1970s, of books beyond textbook requirements, reflecting the times and new needs.

     Secondhand bookshops continue to flourish, sufficient to warrant the publication a few years ago of a national directory booklet—Hugh Norwood, Antiquarian and Secondhand Bookshops (1989 and later editions). There have been, of course, landmark shops. Smith's Bookshop Ltd in Wellington was founded in 1900 and still continues, although since 1987 by mail-order only. Smith's Bookshop (no relation) in Christchurch, the city's oldest, is something of an institution, as was John Summers who opened his own shop in 1958. Dunedin was well served by Newbold's, which opened in 1917 and traded until 1966, for the last 28 years under Dick White. In Auckland, the shops are of more recent vintage, such as Anah Dunsheath's Rare Books established in 1975. Characteristic of their operation is the periodic issue of a catalogue detailing books felt to have value for collectors.

     The rise of Fascism and the threat of war during the 1930s had led many people to the political left and one manifestation of their concern was the cooperative book movement. Left-wing bookshops were already in existence selling pamphlets, periodicals and books of a strictly socialist nature, but the increasing sense of crisis brought about the alliance of progressive movements in many countries and produced Popular Front governments which embraced cultural as well as political issues. This situation was expressed in New Zealand by the election of a Labour government in 1935 and the provision of a suitable climate for the emergence of cooperative book societies to replace left-wing bookshops. The Progressive Bookshop opened in Auckland in 1936, followed by the Christchurch Cooperative Book Society in 1938, the Wellington Cooperative Book Society (called Modern Books) in 1939 and Dunedin's Modern Books in 1943. These shops enjoyed a monopoly for some years until changes in the political climate and the emergence of specialised bookshops saw their gradual decline. Having met the needs of their time, Dunedin closed in 1954, Wellington in 1970, Auckland in 1980 and Christchurch in 1988. The one book on political bookshops and the cooperative book movement is Rachel Barrowman, A Popular Vision: The Arts and the Left in New Zealand 1930-1950 (1991).

Administrative structure and government controls

The book trade was given an official structure with the formation in 1921 of the Booksellers' Association (later Associated Booksellers of New Zealand; later still Booksellers New Zealand) to deal with commonly recognised issues: trading terms with publishers, price cutting, censorship, submissions to government and new bookselling ideas. The background to the 1920s and 1930s were the world recession's effect on export earnings followed by the Great Depression, and hard times were experienced (wage reductions resulted from the Finance Act 1931). However, membership drives had built up the numbers and a stronger voice was available for dealings with the government on matters such as the imposition of sales tax (1933), the customs charge of primage (1935) and censorship. Official bookselling concern was expressed about the competition for entertainment expenditure—cars, wireless, movies and cabarets—and the need to advertise effectively to counter this trend.

     Censorship has always been a fact of life for booksellers and the evolution of this form of restriction is one barometer of a society's changing values. The Offensive Publications Act 1892 specified what was regarded as indecent at that time (VD, sexual aids, abortion or contraception). The Indecent Publications Act 1910, which did not actually define indecency but dealt with the seizure of indecent documents 'set the scene for censorship in New Zealand for the next 40 years' (Gordon Tait, The Bartlett Syndrome: Censorship in New Zealand , 1979, p.3). The banning and seizure of books had become part of the bookseller's experience in the early years of the century, but with the arrival of World War I seditious literature came under government spotlight, and restrictions, especially on political literature, were imposed more stringently. Restrictions were relaxed somewhat during the late 1920s and early 1930s, subsequent to the strict requirements of the War Regulations Continuance Act 1920, and an Order in Council of May 1921 which had prohibited the importation of 'any document which incites, encourages, advises, or advocates violence, lawlessness or disorder, or expresses any seditious intention' (quoted Barrowman, 1991, p.43). The advent of World War II brought into being the Censorship and Publicity Emergency Regulations which included a wide definition of subversive material aimed at any literature regarded officially as being against the war effort. The obvious example was Communist literature. This challenge for booksellers was encapsulated by Harold White, director of the Association, who said in 1973: 'is it not interesting that with honourable exceptions . . . it is a trade group that has been so active in a long-fought battle in this country to defend—or rather extend—the right of people to read books freely?' (quoted Rogers, 1993, p.15).

     In 1954, the Indecent Publications Amendment Act was passed to deal with 'anything which unduly emphasises matters of sex, horror, crime, cruelty or violence' (Rogers, 1993, p.261). The Association negotiated strenuously with the Justice Department to define the responsibility of its booksellers. The actions of the Customs Department were arbitrary and stories abound of the seizure of books in ignorance of titles and authors. The Indecent Publications Act 1963 took decisions out of the hands of politicians and customs officers and gave this function to an Indecent Publications Tribunal. This resolved much censorship confusion.

     The Indecent Publications Tribunal ceased to exist in October 1994 when new legislation (the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993) came into force. The legislation provides for all media under a single consistent regime and reflects developing technology, growing public interest and changing attitudes—possession of 'objectionable' material is now a criminal offence. Three new independent bodies were created: the Industry Labelling Body, the Office of Film and Literature Classifications and the Film and Literature Board of Review. This new structure is intended to provide a more flexible scheme, and a censorship environment where issues can be debated and decided with community involvement.

     Another major issue which arose about this time was that of uniform retail prices. The government believed that such price agreement was not in the public interest as defined by the Trade Practices Act. In spite of both considerable evidence to the contrary and the help of an expert witness from England, the enquiry in 1962 found against the continuation of price schedules. On appeal, however, the finding was reversed.

     The 1970s saw the arrival of Harold White as secretary, later director of the Association, and the development of the organisation into a more professional body. The collection of retailers 'Christian, educational, provincial, urban, each [with] their own needs and idiosyncrasies' (Rogers, 1993, p.271) was drawn together more effectively than before. Censorship continued to be a significant issue. Patricia Bartlett founded her Society for the Promotion of Community Standards in 1970, and throughout the decade there were confrontations with booksellers wishing to sell books of which she did not approve. The Association was kept busy. Gordon Tait, a Christchurch bookseller, was also very active in opposition to her strictures,

witness his book The Bartlett Syndrome (1979).

     During 1980 Harold White and Roy Parsons resigned. These two had contributed in a major way to the effective functioning of the Association. So the decade began with new personnel and some new issues, the main one being the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The imposition of this tax had been long and vigorously opposed, but calls for exemption were not acknowledged by the government, and by 1985 booksellers prepared themselves to take on this new tax. Book promotion, in the light of the growth of competing leisure activities, was given greater emphasis. In 1991 Booksellers New Zealand came into being. Its significance was that it represented both booksellers and publishers, and thereby provided a more concerted thrust in marketing the book trade.

Studies and sources

Directories old and new and of various kinds offer information about booksellers, and their businesses, not least in their advertising sections. Dedicated directories of sections of the trade are Norwood (1989), also B.R. Howes, Book Dealers in Australia and New Zealand (1987-). Archive materials must be sought in the many repositories—there is no general guide devoted especially to trade sources. The Hocken Library, Dunedin, for instance holds an important collection of Newbold's archives and the papers of its proprietor Dick White. General dictionaries of biography include some booksellers: for instance the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography , vol.3, includes articles on A.H. Reed and B. Whitcombe. The forthcoming Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago-Southland Biography , ed. Jane Thomson, is to include short lives of both White and Joseph Braithwaite, the prominent Dunedin bookseller. (David McDonald of the Hocken Library is working on a fuller study of Braithwaite.) Information may be culled from trade periodicals, such as New Zealand Bookseller & Publisher and Book Trade Monthly . Individual booksellers also may issue their own publicity material, or even something more ambitious, such as Parsons Packet , issued 1947-55 by Roy Parsons of Parsons Bookshop, 126 Lambton Quay, Wellington. Parsons Packet (1984) is a selection of articles from that periodical. Further information on book auctions, and secondhand and antiquarian bookshops is given later in this chapter under 'Book collecting'.

     Specific sources include: Minutes of the Associated Booksellers of New Zealand/New Zealand Bookseller Association 1922-69, which are held in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Minutes of Booksellers Association of New Zealand/Booksellers New Zealand 1969-91, which are held by the Association in Book House, Wellington; Book trade journals, which include NZ Bookseller & Publisher, New Zealand Book World, Book Trade Monthly , and Booksellers News .

Conclusion

This brief survey of bookselling in New Zealand attempts to show particular features that have shaped this aspect of our print culture. The energy, enterprise and sometimes vision of individuals have contributed most to the place of bookselling. Frequently there is found a passion for books, an emotion which, when well directed, allows the burning of the midnight oil, the labouring for love and the acceptance of an often modest return. Sometimes, however, the same passion encourages the myth that a love of books and an apparently easy way of life will make a good-looking balance sheet appear automatically. That those with intelligent dedication outnumber the dreamers is evidenced by so many quietly successful businesses continuing to exist in such a small population. The abiding pressure on bookselling as one form of cultural expression has been the presence of censorship, especially that imposed by law. While guidelines are no doubt necessary from time to time, many would argue that a kind of censorship by way of a bookseller's selection of stock based on likely public interest should be a sufficient self-regulator. However, there is nothing to suggest that by virtue of the continuing tension between enterprise and regulation, the place of bookselling in New Zealand's print culture will change significantly in the foreseeable future.

Libraries

Perhaps uniquely amongst the institutions and agencies described in this book, the key to the study of the history of libraries in New Zealand and to knowledge of their operations and resources lies within the institutions themselves. This survey deals primarily with specific published sources of information about New Zealand libraries, but also draws attention to certain reference tools found in libraries which open up further sources of information.

     However, these tools must be viewed as nothing more than indicators of where to look. If libraries are to be exploited for maximum benefit, an enquirer needs to bear in mind that libraries are more than their collections and the buildings which house them: the critical element is the corps of librarians who operate the service. They have the skills and the knowledge to guide an enquirer through the sources.

     Sources of information about print culture are also to be found in media other than print. Electronic files, electronic bulletin boards and directories may often be elusive, transitory, and imperfect, but increasingly they are useful sources of current information and provide traces to other sources. These new media are today the stock-in-trade of libraries, and librarians are familiar with their peculiarities and strengths.

General description and history

We lack a general descriptive work on New Zealand libraries. A person pursuing a study of even modest intensity would have to hunt and seek through a range of sources, such as sections of books, articles in periodicals, and unpublished items, to gain a coherent account of the state of libraries and their development.

     This gap was so obvious that the Wellington College of Education, which administers one of the training courses in librarianship, compiled and published an introductory text for students: see Richardson, Library Service in New Zealand (1993). This book describes the various types of library service and library organisations, and in one chapter a summary of the historical development of library service. Another general description appears as a country entry in an international encyclopaedia on libraries: Wedgeworth (1993). A more recent review of the state of library service appears in a journal article by Calvert (1994). The New Zealand Official Yearbook should not be overlooked. It provides brief descriptive and statistical information about library service in the country, albeit with some emphasis on the services of the National Library of New Zealand.

     The identification of libraries, individually or by type, is not simple. There are several sources which serve as partial guides, but no central comprehensive directory. The single most useful published listing is New Zealand Library Symbols , published by the National Library of New Zealand since 1964. Its purpose is to provide a key to the symbols used by libraries which are participants in the Library Interloan Scheme, but listings have been extended to include most libraries in the country, giving information such as addresses, telephone numbers and names of senior personnel. The only group not included is school libraries. The list is published annually.

     The New Zealand Library and Information Association (NZLIA), PO Box 12-212, Wellington, can supply on request details about individual libraries in New Zealand from membership files and other sources. (Until December 1992 the Association was called the New Zealand Library Association (NZLA).)

     A census of libraries has been taken at varying intervals since 1874, initially in conjunction with the census of population and dwellings, and published with that census. The first separate census of libraries was completed in 1938, then 5-yearly between 1949 and 1979. The scope of these changed over time, becoming more comprehensive.

     Another listing is DILSINZ: A Directory of Information and Library Resources in New Zealand (Szentirmay 1988). Earlier editions of this were published under the title DISLIC in 1959 and 1981. The first listed only special libraries and special collections. A third source is Public Libraries of New Zealand (1980-), a directory of library authorities, with appended indexes of libraries and librarians-in-charge, and a schedule of the libraries arranged by size of population served.

     From time to time, regional directories of libraries have been produced for an occasion, such as the running of a libraries conference in that city or region, for example: Robin White (1994) for Wellington; NZLA Canterbury Branch (1980) for Christchurch.

     The NZLA, perhaps because of the predilection of the members of this profession for listing, classifying and indexing, felt the need to publish a series of directories of librarians: ten editions between 1951 and 1990 under the title Who's Who in New Zealand Libraries . The directories provide alphabetical lists of persons in positions of responsibility and persons with library qualifications, and the lists are indexed by library.

     The only statistical data readily available on a regular basis comes from two sectors: public libraries and the university libraries. The librarians of the universities maintain comparative tables of measures of resources and use. The National Library of New Zealand collects similar types of figures annually from the public libraries and publishes them for general information. The National Library itself publishes a substantial annual report which is a public document. It carries statistical and financial information about its activities, and incidentally provides some information about wider library services. The census reports (1874-1979) referred to above provide analysis of funding, resources and use, arranged by library type and size.

     The Local Authorities section of the NZLA for some years in the 1960s and 70s published a Summary of Public Library Statistics . This was compiled for each financial year, providing some analysis of library performance.

     Prior to the reform of local government in 1989, many public libraries published comprehensive annual reports to their governing authorities, detailing their service record and other achievements, supported by comprehensive statistical information. Under the new conditions of local authority accountability the annual reporting ironically has become simpler and more general, conveying little real sense of what a library has done.

     Useful annual reports are published by other institutions, for example those of the Hocken Library, University of Otago, noting major acquisitions of New Zealand and Pacific material.

Origins and development

Libraries came to New Zealand with the first mass wave of European immigration. The ships that carried those people were in some cases furnished with collections of books and journals, intended as the base collections for public libraries in the new settlements. Examples of the taste and preoccupations of those people may still be seen at the Wellington Public Library, which has preserved a representative selection of the acquisitions that have been made over its 157-year history. A list of the survivors of the inaugural collection is provided as a footnote to Joan Stevens's entertaining article about the Library's first keeper (1968).

     Three municipal public libraries—Auckland, Nelson and Wellington—have at times vied for the distinction of being the first public library in New Zealand. They began operations within a year or so of one another, but the claim of seniority goes to Wellington, which opened its Exchange and Library early in 1841. Unfortunate losses of official records have meant frustration for those who would chronicle the history of that Library. The Library is a useful object of study, passing as it did through a series of mutations, relocations, changes in governance, in a manner characteristic of many such institutions around the country. However, the only convenient sources of the history of Wellington Public Library are a paper written in 1952 by Mary Ronnie, then a student at the New Zealand Library School, and a chapter written by the City Librarian, in a collection of essays about the city: Perry (1970).

     The record of the Nelson Public Library is set down in a modest but comprehensive booklet published to mark the Library's sesquicentenary: Stafford (1992).

     The published story of the beginnings of the other early library, Auckland, has the further distinction of being a major work in the field, one of only two substantial library histories published in New Zealand: Colgan (1980). It tells a typical story of the interplay of municipal forces, political pressures, private beneficence, professional commitment, and community activism.

     J.E. Traue (1993) examines the background to the early establishment of libraries in settlements. Ruth Graham (1996) writes against this background in describing the history of the library in the Wellington suburb of Karori, from 1844 to 1902.

     Given the importance of the concept of the mechanics' institute in the origins of the Auckland Public Library, and elsewhere in the country, it is proper to acknowledge A.L. Kidson's (1971) general article about this popular education movement. However, the general history of New Zealand libraries remains to be pieced together from numerous sources which deal with individual libraries, with specific aspects of library service or with particular areas of the country. John Harris (1947) in the course of his Presidential address to the NZLA retailed the history of libraries, and thereby provided for many years the only text to which students might turn. The following year his history of Otago libraries, 1848-1948, was published. Another useful guide for this first century in library development appeared as a Library School bibliography: Foote (1948).

     It is surprising that individual libraries have not been as ready as school and parish churches to produce records of their history, given the celebration of many centenaries in the past 30 years. A search of the New Zealand National Bibliography ( NZNB ), the Index to New Zealand Periodicals , and Index New Zealand , under the heading Libraries, will identify the few histories that exist. Here are some of special interest: Barrowman (1995) on the Alexander Turnbull Library, Bell (1950) on the Canterbury Public Library, Malcolm (1971) on the Palmerston North Public Library, Maslen (1985) on the Naseby Athenaeum, Johnson (1988) on the University of Auckland Library, New Zealand Historic Places Trust (1977) on the General Assembly Library, and Ringer (1980) on the Hamilton Public Library.

     Bagnall's New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960 , in its earliest volumes covering to 1889, lists some printed catalogues of libraries interesting to those examining the reading tastes of earlier generations. In an age when the size and stability of library collections made a printed catalogue practicable such publications were common in even the smallest communities. A cluster of such catalogues published in the Hawkes Bay in the 1880s, serving libraries as obscure as Glenross, Maraekakaho, and Mohaka, may have owed more to the commercial enterprise of the local printer, R.C. Harding, than it did to reader utility; the large amount of advertising that appeared in the catalogue of the Napier Athenaeum and Mechanics' Institute would suggest that different market forces were at play.

     Enlightening also are the published rules of libraries; and here study should not be confined to the public institutions. The New Zealand National Bibliography carries references to several early private libraries. These occupied a niche in the library market which remained important up to the 1960s. However, few if any of the book clubs that were still prospering immediately prior to the advent of television in New Zealand could hold rank with the Parnell Book Club, Auckland, the rules of which in 1885 referred to 'the number of members limited to 20 gentlemen'. J. Edward Brown (1984) presents his reflections on the golden age of the book clubs in his article 'Zane Grey and Lane's Emulsion'.

     The establishment of the earliest libraries was parallel with the establishment of their communities. Libraries were amongst the amenities and facilities that settlers brought with them. The subsequent development of those libraries and the development of a library network throughout the country took place because pressures were exerted from various directions, by a variety of agencies: individuals, city and county authorities, the Government, education authorities, professional librarians, and organisations with a vested interest in the growth of libraries.

     There were different strands of development within the general fabric of library development, and progress in one element or another would slow or increase in pace from time to time. Each element and each type of library has therefore to be considered separately, even if all movements were tending in the same direction, and occasionally resulted in concerted action. The education and training of librarians was one such area of interest; the creation of a national library, the securing of free public library service, and the improvement of services to children were other prominent issues, each worth a chapter of its own.

Government and governance

Public library service in New Zealand has been, with a few exceptions, a community issue and has been accordingly a responsibility of local government. We do not have library law governing the administration of public library service, as may be found in other countries, such as those of Scandinavia. Stuart Perry (1948) describes the background in his article on library legislation in New Zealand.

     The statutes under which public libraries operate in New Zealand have been permissive rather than prescriptive. The Danish Public Libraries Act, a prescriptive statute, was published in New Zealand Libraries (1954) with the hope expressed that it might generate ideas about the development of New Zealand library service. In 1988, when comparisons were drawn between services in New Zealand and those in Norway, the lack of library law remained the outstanding difference: Dobbie (1988).

     However, some saw an association between the notion of library law and the bogey of state interference, particularly when the concept of state aid to public libraries was discussed. The two ideas are of course linked: state aid must be balanced by accountability. Cyril Tolley (1959) in three articles describes the interaction of these ideas in the earlier period of our library history, from the Provincial period to World War I. A series of articles by D.C. McIntosh (1952) describing the situation at the time of writing brings the story into the modern era

     State aid and the role of the state in library service has a story of its own. There was as much apprehensiveness on the government side as there was on the local government side. New Zealand Libraries reported a sharp response by the Minister of Education, Algie, and by some newspaper editorial writers, to an address given at the NZLA Conference in 1953 by the President, on the subject of the State and public libraries: Perry (1953). The government was funding at that time the Country Library Service, the National Library Service and the Alexander Turnbull Library, and was sensitive to any suggestion that more might be expected of it. Perry (1971) returned to the subject, and the plight of the larger public libraries in particular, 20 years later. His paper is complemented in the same issue of the journal by a description of existing levels and types of State aid to public libraries: O'Neill (1971).

     The disparities in scale and quality of service which are characteristic of the New Zealand public library sector (one could certainly not call it a 'system') stem from the local, largely unregulated nature of service, and the dependence for funding on local rates. There has been from the outset a large gap between the levels of service achieved in urban areas and those achieved in rural areas; there have even been significant gaps between poorer and richer urban communities, even gaps within individual urban regions. Part of the reason lies in the fact that we have not had the mechanism for encouraging and achieving consistent standards across the country that exists in other countries with which we generally like to compare ourselves, namely direct funding assistance by central government to local services. This has been a weakness of our public library structure, but it has been argued that it may also be a strength which has allowed progressive authorities to achieve the highest standards.

     The principle of 'State aid' came close to realisation in the period of the Provincial governments, but the low level of assistance that was offered had little effect, and no useful precedent was created.

     The principle found a different form of expression in the mid 1930s, when the idea of the Country Library Service (CLS) was conceived. It was an idea whose time had come: the right conditions existed in the immediate post-Depression period, the right people were in power and the right people were on hand to make it work. The Service in its many manifestations flourished for over 30 years, becoming part of the folklore of rural communities and a vital element in the operations of public libraries in the smaller towns.

     McIntosh (1952), in the conclusion to his third article, addressing the weaknesses in service, applies the concept of regional library service to North Auckland. This was not a novel proposal. The idea of regional units was planted firmly in the Munn-Barr Report (1934), and it had been about in the minds of some New Zealand librarians in rudimentary form prior to that. The concept drew together several threads: concern about rural service, the disparities between various local authorities, organisational inefficiencies, lack of coordination between libraries and the schools sector, state aid, and service standards. Regional library service was to become a major campaign object for the NZLA and the National Library Service from the 1950s through to the 1980s. It needs no further commentary here; the subject is treated thoroughly by Ronnie in her history of regional library services in New Zealand, Books to the People (1993). Suffice it to say that the concept failed to gain acceptance; the effect that its promoters were seeking had to await the implementation of general local government reform in 1989. However, the progress achieved by that reform has been extremely uneven, and it has been obscured by negative factors which have come to bear on local government.

     The difficulty in achieving fair standards of library service in rural areas was a prime motive in the campaign for regional service. Service to rural areas and isolated places is a story in itself. Ronnie covers the strategic and political dimensions of that story, but the feeling and flavour of library work in rural areas can be gauged from sources such as Sutherland and MacLean (1967) writing about the CLS bookvans, and Mercer (1951) describing the smaller borough libraries. The nature and dimensions of the problem, observed in a particular and typical area can be studied in Sutherland (1984), writing about Northland. An interesting perspective on the subject, with some predictions on the direction that rural society might be taking, is provided by a specialist in rural education: McSweeney (1964). Similar interest exists in a study undertaken by the sociologist Claudia Bell (1986). The results of the Bell study form part of the Report of the Ministerial Review of National Library Services to Rural Areas (Chalmers, 1987), from which sprang a series of reforms of that service, summarised by Liz McLean (1990).

Standards and measures of performance

Virtually all the debate and action about standards for service has stemmed from the NZLA/NZLIA, but the establishment of library education at Victoria University and the introduction of advanced studies has generated research of interest to libraries. A clear statement of the research needs of the sector was made by O'Neill (1965) and with reference to the public libraries by Malvina Overy (1965).

     Research undertaken has been individual and isolated, not part of a plan. There is no institute of library research in New Zealand nor any agency serving that purpose, although the National Library of New Zealand within its purposes clearly has an obligation to foster development of knowledge about library service. The Library has undertaken some pieces of research, and the Trustees of the Library have funded individual studies and research in response to applications.

     A statistician in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, working as an interested library user, demonstrated what could be achieved on a small scale with modest application of analytical methods, in three pieces of research and analysis he did in the 1960s and 1970, taking small public libraries as his subject. One of these exercises was based on analysis of the late-lamented date-due slip, which yielded a wealth of information about borrowing patterns: Roberts (1966, 1973, 1981).

     The development of published standards for libraries was in part a political exercise (to support bids for higher levels of funding) and in part a professional response (to demands for better management). Standards documents were produced for the libraries of technical institutes, special libraries, and teachers colleges, in each case by the professional groups associated with the type of library. The standards for public library service were the more robust, being first developed in the early 1950s: O'Neill (1952), and maintained through a number of subsequent editions published by the NZLA (eg. 1966, 1980).

     The National Library in its particular way applied a set of standards to the public libraries which it supported through Country Library Service. Its Guide for Public Libraries (1978) presented a set of minimum requirements for organisation and performance, which were a condition of granting aid to those libraries.

     It was only to be expected that the late 1980s would see a shift from input standards, which is what these earlier standards had been, to measures and standards of output. In the case of public libraries the profession looked at various methodologies. The most attractive was that which had been devised by the Public Library Association, United States. The director of that organisation came to New Zealand in 1989 to explain and promote the methodology: Rodger (1990). However, within a couple of years an alternative methodology was being developed in New Zealand, designed to match our peculiar conditions. It depended heavily on the consensus of all parties involved in service as to what constituted sound measures of service success: Cullen and Calvert (1992a-b).

     In a further development since that date the NZLIA has produced a manual for assessing the economic value of libraries, designed once again to support claims for increased funding, or at least sustained funding: NZLIA and Coopers and Lybrand (1996).

Associations

Mention was made earlier of the planning and the activities undertaken by groups of early European settlers, leading to the establishment of libraries in communities. Popular pressure and the initiative of individuals, whether users or public-spirited persons, continued to be influential, and remain so to the present day. The influences are expressed through 'friends of the library', as various as the veteran Friends of the Alexander Turnbull Library, the National Library Society or the support groups for particular public libraries, and local lobby groups formed to meet specific situations. However, the more sustained effort has come from the people with the most immediate vested interest: those involved in the operation of services, and the governing authorities of those libraries, acting collectively.

     The impulse to form a group nationally to promote the advancement of libraries came from Dunedin. A newspaper man, Mark Cohen, inspired by his involvement in the campaign to form a public library in Dunedin and by his observations during a trip to England, the United States and Canada, persuaded the Dunedin City Council to convene a conference of public libraries in 1910. The seven libraries who attended that conference resolved themselves into the Libraries Association of New Zealand. This organisation, through a revival and change of name in 1935, and a further change of name in 1992, established a continuity with the current New Zealand Library and Information Association.

     The first change of name, to the New Zealand Library Association, aimed to reflect a more balanced view of the organisation's objectives and activities. Rather than being an association of libraries it had become an association of all parties with an interest in the welfare and promotion and of libraries, including the sponsorship of professional standards.

     The dominant voices in the Association were inevitably those of the professional librarians working in the field, but representatives of governing authorities remained effective members, and often occupied the highest offices in the organisation. The broad terms of the Association's constitution, allied with the small scale of the library sector in a relatively small country probably explains why much of the history of libraries in New Zealand can be traced through the records of the Association. The diverse groups which make up the library sector have chosen to work within the single organisation, albeit as discrete sections. The Association itself has mastered the geography of the country by forming branches or regional groupings, each of which draws sustenance from the national body and in turn feeds its energies into national activities. The story of the NZLA was told comprehensively in its jubilee year by W.J. McEldowney (1962) and in his supplementary article (1970). The Association's historical records are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library.

     The Association has been the major generator of material about New Zealand libraries, in its capacity as a publisher of journals, other serials, and monographs, as a commissioner of surveys and reports, and as an author of submissions to official bodies. A professional journal, New Zealand Libraries , began in 1939, having evolved from an organisational newsletter. The newsletter function was continued by a monthly publication, under the title New Zealand Library Association Newsletter (1956-77), and from 1978 as Library Life . With less regularity the various geographical branches and interest groups of the Association have published newsletters. Branch newsletters may be found in major libraries in the areas concerned, but those of interest groups have not been retained consistently. Neither type form part of the Association's records.

      New Zealand Libraries has been indexed in the Index to New Zealand Periodicals and in Index New Zealand ( INNZ ), but partial cumulative indexes have also been published by the Association from time to time: Robinson and Henderson (1960) for the period 1937 to 1957, and Battye (1974) for the period 1958 to 1970. The newsletter, in its various guises, has never been indexed. This is a significant gap in coverage because the newsletter is a useful source of information about activities of the Association, and about individuals and events in the library sector. From time to time, the proceedings of the Association's annual conferences and occasional seminars have been published.

     The NZLA/NZLIA has cultivated relations with kindred organisations in other countries, most conspicuously with the Australian counterpart, the Australian Library and Information Association (formerly known as the Australian Library Association). Three joint conferences have been held by the two associations, in 1984, 1988, and 1994. The proceedings of these have been published. From time to time, there has been a more regular exchange of ideas and thinking between the two countries by way of journals which sought an Australasian audience: APLIS ( Australasian Public Library and Information Services ) and the short-lived New Librarian .

     Acknowledging traditional ties, the Association has been an active member of the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) from its formation in 1971, and New Zealand librarians have been prominent in its administration. An account of the objectives of COMLA was given by John Stringleman (1973), and 15 years later the work of COMLA was reviewed by Stringleman (by then a past president) and the current South Pacific Representative: Stringleman and Wooliscroft (1989).

Librarianship

Joan Stevens's 1968 article about Frederick Knox, the first Wellington librarian, describes well what a community regarded as suitable qualifications for operating a public library. Over 40 years later, those responsible for making an appointment to the position of first Librarian of the Auckland Public Library were a good deal less demanding (see article on Edward Shillington, DNZB , vol.2, 1870-1900). The consideration that was uppermost in the minds of the appointing board in Auckland was the need to show encouragement to a married man; an acquaintance with books was a less pressing need. As late as the 1930s, it was not uncommon to see the appointment of persons without library qualifications to positions of some seniority in larger libraries.

     Prior to World War II, the person who wished to gain qualifications for library work typically would enrol for courses run by the Library Association, London. Rank and file staff in libraries were required to have little more than an upper primary school pass. The raising of the qualification levels of workers in libraries is a story of activity in the late 1930s and 1940s by the re-energised NZLA, directly, and in partnership with the Carnegie Corporation of New York (which tied its development grants to a requirement for staff training) and the newly-established Country Library Service. See Maxine Rochester (1990) on 'the revolution in New Zealand librarianship'. The development of a training regime for New Zealand is a story initially of in-service correspondence courses, then the establishment of graduate studies (1946), the replacement of the correspondence courses by a 'sandwich course', and the eventual transfer of graduate studies (the Diploma of the New Zealand Library School) to Victoria University of Wellington, and the transfer of non-graduate studies (the NZLA Certificate) to the Wellington College of Education. The story is told in Ronnie (1996).

     Ronnie (1980) describes the work of the New Zealand Library School, from its foundation in 1946 to its close in 1979. Information about graduates of the School was published regularly in New Zealand Libraries each year, but there is a convenient source of listings of students in Dienes (1995), which covers the entire period of the School's existence, 1946-79. It is a list of students, arranged by class year, noting the bibliography that each student produced. The list is prefaced by statistical information about class numbers, academic qualifications and gender balance, and has a subject index to the bibliographies. Complementary to Dienes is the work by Rimmer and Siddells (1972), a listing of Library School bibliographies, 1946-72. The period covered is shorter than that covered by Dienes but entries are annotated.

     The transfer of the graduate education of librarians to Victoria University of Wellington in 1980, bringing with it the full recognition of library education as a tertiary qualification, was the outcome of protracted lobbying pressure by the Association. It was a campaign complicated by the issue of what to do with the training course for non-graduates. A key document was the report of a working group appointed by Minister of Education Kinsella in 1969 to advise him on the future of education for librarians. The report of the group is a useful reference, more for its history and summary of the contemporary situation than for its conclusions and recommendations (which were not implemented): Working Party on Education for Librarianship (1969).

     With the two arms of library training secure in their respective institutions, a period of quiet progress might have been expected. However, changes in social conditions and in the library environment forced further review. One of the issues, distance education, is the subject of a paper by Richardson (1990). Another issue, research and advanced studies, is treated by Roderick Cave (1984b, 1991). The interested parties twice invited experts from overseas, English and American in turn, to survey the situation and to make recommendations: Saunders (1987), Barron (1994). For a broader account of education for librarianship in New Zealand at a critical stage of its development, see Gerald Bramley's World Trends in Library Education (1975).

     An interesting episode in the development of library education was the campaign to establish a training course for teacher-librarians, as part of a wider campaign to strengthen library services in schools. A course began at Wellington Teachers College in 1986 with 20 students, but ran for two years only. The story is well told in Ronnie (1996), but additional light is thrown on the issue in two papers published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research: Lealand (1988, 1989). The director of the 1986 course described the event: Gawith (1986). A background article on the subject, with bibliography, published 20 years earlier, retains some interest: Burns (1963).

     An allied question is that of professional qualifications. Discussion of this issue within the profession was coloured by the existence of the two levels of training, graduate and non-graduate. Less than ten years after the commencement of the graduate school in 1946, the Association put in place a system of professional registration, which conferred on suitable persons the qualification Associate of the New Zealand Library Association (ANZLA). This is essentially the system which operates at present. An early paper by John Barr (1948a) sets out some of the difficulties in achieving what he called 'certification'.

     Five years after Barr the subject was thoroughly treated by a number of prominent librarians at a symposium, reported in New Zealand Libraries , October 1952. In 1954 the annual conference of the Association adopted a registration proposal; explanatory remarks made on that occasion were reported in the journal: McEldowney (1954). These two references between them provide a fair description of the background and principles of the system. The rules and procedures of the registration system have been modified substantially since 1955, generally to strengthen the requirements.

     The NZLA/NZLIA, contrary to some views of it and occasionally the wishes of some members, has never been an industrial organisation nor, in the current parlance, has it acted as a negotiating agent, but it has taken an interest in the working conditions of librarians, in particular the levels of remuneration. From 1960 it maintained a standard salary scale, within which there were recommended levels and scales of salary for various grades of library qualification and for various grades of management responsibility in libraries. In a sense the standard salary scale was a management manual rather than a piece of industrial advocacy. It brought together and recorded the best practice in the library sector and related sectors, so that employing authorities and library managers might be assured that they were offering competitive conditions, an important consideration in what was a period of high employment. A summary account of the scale and its history is given in McKeon (1973). Prior to 1960 there had been efforts on three occasions to strike standard levels of remuneration in public libraries; the background to the production of the first comprehensive standard scale is given in New Zealand Libraries (22, Sept. 1959, pp.152-63). The issue of what stance the Association should take in industrial matters, and what degree of militancy librarians should exhibit is canvassed in a series of thoughtful articles in New Zealand Libraries : Roth, Brooks, Traue, Gittos (1974).

     In the decades after World War II workforce planning was understandably a preoccupation of a sector confronted by steady business growth on the one hand and a relatively small labour intake on the other. How was the profession to estimate the numbers needed to avoid shortages or surpluses of various

types of worker? A series of survey articles was published in New Zealand Libraries between 1968 and 1987, showing the employment patterns of librarians, related to a variety of factors: age, country of birth, date of training, type of qualification, gender, marital status, and type of employing library. Extrapolated from this information there were statistics about gains and losses of people from the workforce, and growth trends in subsectors of the library community. See O'Neill and Traue (1968), Traue (1972), McEldowney (1982, 1987).

     In the year prior to the publishing of the first of these articles, the Professional Division of the Association carried out a general survey of library work. The purpose of the study was to ascertain how the work of libraries was being discharged, in particular its allocation between clerks, library assistants and the two types of qualified staff. The knowledge derived from the study was expected to help in subsequent planning of training, negotiating of salaries, and achieving of efficiency in library operations: O'Neill (1967b).

     Another survey was carried out a year later directed specifically at women and their position within the profession. The report on the survey was published, and its findings were the subject of a seminar within the 1968 Conference of the Association. The issue of New Zealand Libraries for February 1969 carries the report of the seminar, a collation of the comments made by the women who were surveyed, a commentary by a library employer, and a report of the discussion which occurred at the seminar and the resolutions which arose from it: NZLA, Professional Section (1969).

     The paradox of the 'five-sixths minority' was put before the profession, with a plea for correction of the anomaly, in a statement made by 12 women librarians in New Zealand Libraries in 1975. The signatories observed that women outnumbered men 5:1 in the library sector, but senior posts in libraries were distributed in the inverse proportion: Thwaites (1975). In that International Women's Year, the journal carried further comment about deficiencies in the profession's treatment of its majority members, for example in an article which identified sexist language in the student notes for the Association's Certificate Course examination. Ten years later the same career patterns were revealed in a survey undertaken by Jan Bierman (1985).

     The most recent treatment of the subject was a paper by Glenda Northey (1995). The author argued that the Association had throughout its history obstructed the advancement of women in the profession. The force of the arguments was weakened by their dependence on records of the Association and on simple quotations from past commentators, without regard to the circumstances in which statements were made or the value that certain concepts and expressions possessed at the time that they were made.

People

McEldowney (1962) in the introduction to his book, writing of a very active period in the history of the NZLA, and endeavouring to explain the extraordinary effectiveness of the Association during that period, said that nine persons alone would be sufficient to constitute an honours list for the organisation. What was true of the Association might also be said of the library sector at large. There are individuals who stand out as particularly effective and influential through persistent activity, and through a gift for persuading communities, the profession, library authorities, and government that a certain course should be followed.

     Recognition of the careers of most of these persons is to be found amongst retirement tributes and obituaries in the pages of the Association's journal and newsletter, and in other journals and in newspapers. The search for more substantial treatments in book form yields virtually nothing. For example, the life of the key figure in library development in the three middle decades of this century, G.T. Alley, remains a 'work in progress'. Even the items in the periodical literature seem strangely random, reflecting little of the pace and pattern of library development. For example, the death of John Barr, partner in the landmark survey of New Zealand libraries in 1934, received no more than a one-page note in the professional journal: New Zealand Libraries (35, April 1972, p.147).

     Nonetheless, there are some works which deserve notice. G.T. Alley, first National Librarian, around the time of his 80th birthday, published reminiscences of his work with people whom he regarded as pivotal: Peter Fraser, H.G.R. Mason, T.D.H. Hall, Alister McIntosh, Archie Dunningham, Professor James Shelley: Alley (1983). Dunningham (1948) wrote about Mark Cohen, founder of Dunedin Public Library and convener of the first gathering of library authorities in 1910. McEldowney (1973b) and Traue (1986) wrote on Graham Bagnall, an Alley lieutenant, but distinguished in his own right as scholar, writer, bibliographer and Chief Librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library. H.O. Roth (1979) and D.O. Bozimo (1981) offered tributes to John Harris, whose professional life is the most widely documented, perhaps because he had pursued distinguished careers in New Zealand and later in Nigeria.

     The record of women, in a profession which they dominated numerically, is even less adequately treated. Alice Minchin's death in 1966 received no notice in the profession's journal, a fact noted by the writer who later revived interest in her contribution to the development of the Auckland University Library: Johnson (1990). She had been appointed as the University's first Librarian in 1917, and battled on in that position against 30 years of gross neglect by the University authorities, establishing an organisation which though poor was well organised and properly run, ready to respond to the more generous treatment of the postwar years.

     Another 30-year career of note was that of Alice Woodhouse, first Reference Librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Her Chief, C.R.H. Taylor, in whose place she acted for a time during World War II, wrote a tribute to her after her death in 1977: Taylor (1978). The death of Mary Fleming was noted in New Zealand Libraries by five senior members of the profession, one of whom characterised her as 'influential rather than prominent'—a compliment to a person who provided leadership in the period when the system for training librarians was being established: White et al (1964).

     The career of Mary Ronnie is documented progressively through the pages of professional literature in New Zealand, because her career has been marked by continuous involvement in professional matters and the politics of the business. It stands as a 'typical' story, yet one which is individual and distinguished. It has been acknowledged as a role model for women in the profession, but in a sense that accords it less than full credit; she was a role model for librarians generally. Perhaps significantly the career story has been most generously treated in a journal published outside the profession, Metro , reflecting the impact that this person has had in public life: Callan (1984).

     Esther Glen gave her name and reputation to an award medal given by the NZLA/NZLIA to New Zealand writers for distinguished works of fiction for children—the oldest such award in the country. For a brief account of her life see Celia Dunlop (1993).

     In an obituary for Dorothy Ballantyne, McEldowney (1995) placed her among that generation of New Zealand librarians who displayed what the author called 'missionary zeal'. The fields in which she chose to spread the message were books for children (about which she wrote under the name Dorothy Neal White) and library service for children; through the medium of her professional career she made the two fields one.

     The American librarian Keyes Metcalf visited New Zealand once, in 1958, for three weeks only. However, his influence on library development in this country is considered to be such that the tribute to him in New Zealand Libraries occupies five pages. McEldowney (1985) traces the effects of that influence, which worked its way through Metcalf's classic book on academic library architecture, encounters with him at a significant seminar in Australia by key New Zealand library personalities, the visit to New Zealand itself, and continuing contacts with the people whom he had met in New Zealand.

The Carnegie Corporation

The first mention of the Carnegie Corporation in this essay had to do with the training of librarians. However, most would remember the Carnegie grants for the construction of free libraries. These buildings constituted a topic for a Fulbright Research Scholar who worked at the National Library in 1993, and later for an exhibition shown by the Library. Few of the 18 buildings remain, and few of the survivors are still operated as libraries. Some of them were described in 'Six lost, twelve remain', New Zealand Historic Places (60, Sept. 1996, pp.22-24).

     The Carnegie Corporation's more significant investment in New Zealand library development was directed at people, the people who were supported in their studies in Europe and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s and came back to New Zealand to play crucial roles in the development of library service, and the others from outside New Zealand who were sponsored by the Corporation to conduct enquiries into the state of New Zealand library service. The story of the contact between the Carnegie Corporation and New Zealand is told by Rochester (1981, 1990).

     With New Zealand's graduation to the status of a 'developed library country' the Carnegie Corporation eventually withdrew. An account of the last general Carnegie contribution is recorded in New Zealand Libraries (1950), but it needs to be noted that Carnegie funding was again in evidence in the surveys conducted by Osborn (1960) and Fenwick (1975).

Surveys and planning

The practice of modern government, in the frequent mounting of commissions of inquiry, working parties and reviews has obscured for us the fact that major enquiries 50 years ago were major events in the library world. They seemed to be necessary way stations on the road of development, and they stand prominently in the record of development.

     The foundation stone of the modern library structure in New Zealand is considered to be the Carnegie-funded survey by Ralph Munn (from Pittsburgh, United States) and John Barr (City Librarian, Auckland): their findings and recommendations are set out in the document known generally as the Munn-Barr Report (1934). The document has been a reference point for subsequent studies and proposals on a number of issues: a national library, regional library service, resource sharing, library legislation, promotion of service in rural areas, library service in schools, professional training and remuneration.

     It introduced or reiterated support for ideas of free library service (quite radical at the time), state subsidies to local library authorities, raising of the library rate, and lifting qualification standards for library workers.

     Whether the Munn-Barr Report was as effective as it is supposed to have been is of academic interest only, because the survey was not the last word. The need for review and commentary by an outsider was to arise again in 1950 and in 1960. In 1950 Miriam Tompkins, from Columbia University, was commissioned to conduct a national survey of public library service. The outcome of her enquiry pointed a course towards regional library service, as an alternative to the existing service based on individual local authorities. The setting for the Tompkins survey is described by C.W. Collins (1950).

     The next visitor was Dr Andrew Osborn, invited by the NZLA to conduct a national survey and review of library resources. His findings and recommendations were set out in his report: Osborn (1960). Background to the forthcoming survey was provided by Jean Wright (1959). Those interested in historical perspective may read the review of the Osborn report written by Ralph Munn, 26 years after he had conducted a similar survey (1960).

     The most recent activity which could be compared fairly with these three surveys was the large exercise in collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand and the NZLIA, The N Strategy . This exercise in policy formulation and strategic planning was designed to draw upon the energies of organisations and people within New Zealand, coupling the various library groups with various interest groups within the community at large: information technology, communications, marketing, commerce, manufacturing, and so on. It operated through conferences, workshops, consultation across all sectors, and the mounting of research and policy development by working parties dedicated to various specific issues. The objectives of the programme are set out in The N Strategy: Recommendations for Actions for Prosperity (1992).

Free library service

One of the curiosities of New Zealand public library practice has been the differentiation in public libraries between two classes of fiction: 'serious fiction', and 'the other'.

     The distinction had its origins in the working out of a free library service policy for public libraries. The greater number of public libraries in the 1930s offered service to users only on payment of a membership subscription or rental fees for borrowing, or both. The promoters of free library service, that is, free access and free borrowing, were aware of the immediate funding hurdle that stood in the way of any library that attempted the transition. Not only was there the problem of finding funds for strengthened book collections, but there was the certainty of enlarged demand for the existing stock, much of it of a light nature. New Zealand's free-and-rental system was a device which allowed the serious objectives of free service to be realised at the same time as the demand for light reading was satisfied. The formulation of the free-and-rental system was described by O'Reilly (1948a).

     Most of the debate concerned fiction literature, because this was an era in which light fiction was the nation's 'television'. For an interesting sidelight on this subject see the Report of the Wellington Public Libraries for the year ended 31 March 1965 , in which the City Librarian Stuart Perry (1965b) presented graphs showing the impact of television on issues of various types of material, after its general introduction in 1960; the fall in use of light fiction was dramatic. Perry also wrote an account of the change from a user-pays system to the free-and-rental system at Wellington Public Library, a large library which had struggled to make the change against Council resistance, achieving it later than many other libraries: Perry (1952b).

     There were two views of the free-and-rental scheme. The first saw a clear distinction drawn between 'serious' fiction, and that written purely for entertainment. This led to the separation on library shelves of the two types of fiction, and the application of a borrowing fee to the lighter fiction. It led also to the erection of a system of fiction classification and an organisation for reviewing fiction regularly in terms of the classification.

     The second view saw a distinction simply between books which were in high demand and those for which there was lower demand. This view, espoused notably by R.N. O'Reilly, and practised at Canterbury Public Library, saw rental charges applied to the high demand items, with a proviso that there would be other copies of these books also in the free collection, which existed to serve the library's social and educative functions. This practice has had a revival in the 1990s, with the introduction of 'bestseller' rental collections in public libraries.

     The earliest manifestation of the conflicting views is in the papers presented at the 17th conference of the NZLA by Barr (1948), arguing for restriction of fiction, and O'Reilly (1948b), arguing for satisfaction (and control) of popular demand.

     The NZLA was a promoter of the first view of the free-and-rental system. For decades it had a Fiction Committee, the function of which was to classify fiction and publish lists for the guidance of member libraries. The basic reference is the Association's Report on (A) Standard and (B) Popular Authors (1942). A useful description of the work of the Fiction Committee is provided by O'Neill (1967a). The Fiction Committee published numerous editions of the Guide to Authors of Fiction , a comprehensive list of writers of fiction, against each of whom a classification was allocated. The classification system was developed to a point of refinement which would be fascinating today to students of literature. The Guide was supplemented by monthly lists of new fiction, each item carrying a description and commentary on the book, and a classification.

     Readers wishing to gain further understanding of the tension between the two schools of thought on free-and-rental service should consult New Zealand Library School (1961) which records the proceedings of a seminar on the subject, and the review article on the book: Priscilla Taylor (1962). The main protagonists were on the seminar platform together with other senior library managers and a political scientist.

     The effect that the free-and-rental system had on patterns of borrowing was studied by O'Neill (1969). His article suggested that reading of fiction purely for entertainment would wither in the face of competition from television, and that the free-and-rental distinction might eventually become redundant.

Library service for children

Attempts have been made from time to time, in the name of progress or professional innovation, to remove distinctions between services to children and services to other age groups, by integration of the book stock in public libraries, by merging of a community's public library and its school library, by pooling of staff in the children's library and the general library. However the designation of services specifically for children has remained established practice since the first children's libraries were opened in Wellington and Dunedin in 1910. The rationale for dedicated stock, services and staffing is positive; the objective is not the restriction of children's reading but the enlargement of their reading by exposure to the richness of children's literature.

     This child-centred view of library service, allied with a thorough knowledge of children's literature, lay behind the revitalisation of children's librarianship in the late 1930 and the 1940s. Much of the energy and inspiration for this came from the experience that was gained overseas by New Zealand librarians, again with critical Carnegie Foundation support. One of these agents, Dorothy Neal White (1961), provides a brief history of children's service to 1946. Trevor Mowbray (1993) extends the account and describes the state of services at that date.

     Another critical event within this process was the creation of the School Library Service in 1942. It took books to schools and smaller public libraries, and it provided expertise and guidance in the development of library services for children. The story of the service in its first 46 years is told by Lois Luke (1988).

     Both the major surveys, Munn-Barr, and Osborn, made reference in passing to the quality of services to children, but the area first received individual attention in a survey conducted in 1974 by the American expert Sara Fenwick, at the invitation of the NZLA and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. The report, Fenwick (1975) provides a useful description of existing services, and lays down lines for development of services; it should be read in conjunction with a statistical appendix, published in 1977. Libraries in schools had been given close scrutiny the same year, within the context of the Educational Development Conference: EDC (1974). The pressure generated by the Fenwick Report led to the establishment of a Government working party on school libraries, and another landmark document, the Foley Report (1978). The setting and the significance of the Foley Report are described by P.L. McDonald (1981).

     It was ten years before research and review on a comparable scale was undertaken. The National Library examined its own services to young people, and the use made of various other library services by young people: Chalmers and Slyfield (1993).

Mäori and the library service

Professional discussion and action on the issue of service to Mäori falls into two periods: an earlier time when Mäori were regarded as one user group amongst a number of user groups, where low rates of library use indicated that there was a need for development; and the latter period, during which the concepts of bicultural development and bicultural provision of service have been given prominence.

     The report of the professional association's Mäori Library Service Committee in 1963 represents typical views of the earlier period: NZLA (1963). Examples of the work being done in that period to make libraries more attractive to non-European users (amongst whom Mäori were classified) are described in Ridling (1958), Ridling and Hills (1968), Cauchi (1972), and Murphy (1979, 1981).

     The development of the bicultural concept is traced in a bibliography by Barbara Blake (1990). The basic reference for an understanding of where Mäori stand in relation to libraries are two reports on the Te Ara Tika research project: Tui MacDonald (1993) and Szekeley (1991). Two radical views of the issue are provided by Calvert (1992) and Higgins (1992) who expressed doubt about the appropriateness of libraries as a medium to service the information needs of Mäori and of Pacific Islands people in general. More positive views are taken by other non-Mäori librarians: Carroll (1990) and Pharo (1992). Mäori perspectives on existing services and organisations are described by McRae (1990, 1992) and Szekeley (1992).

     Interesting demonstrations of biculturalism practised in specific fields are set out by Alastair Smith (1996) for electronic information; Robert Sullivan (1995) for collection management; and Lyn Williams (1991) for reference service.

Types of library

The most recent and comprehensive descriptions of the various types of library in New Zealand are to be found in Richardson (1993). Chapters in this book are devoted to public libraries, library services for children, university libraries, college of education libraries, polytechnic libraries, special libraries, the Parliamentary Library and the National Library.

     'Public library' denotes the type of library service which is operated for the general community and administered almost exclusively by district councils. Funding is derived from the local area, and standards of service are determined entirely by the governing authority. There have been few exceptions to this pattern. The period of large government public works saw a few public libraries established under the auspices of a government agency, but these reverted eventually to local control. A typical example was the Türangi Public Library: N.G. Williams (1974).

     The public library sector had for most of its history been marked by extreme diversity and disparities of scale. Services ran the gamut from a few books in a cupboard in a local country store to urban library systems comprising a central library, branches and mobile libraries, with all the gradations between. There had been hopes for rationalisation through reorganisation in regional units, but little progress was made until local government itself was reorganised in 1989. Dorothea Brown (1989) sets out the issues that the government's programme of local government reform were posing for public libraries.

     There has been no discursive or reflective account of the state of public library service in the period since 1989, and no assessment of the effects of reform, but the National Library has published three reports which convey statistical information, derived from surveys: Sweeney and Thomson (1991), Sweeney (1991), Chalmers (1995). The more reflective kind of account is available for earlier periods: Alley (1968) surveyed the period 1946-67; Wylie (1954b) the period 1954-64; Perry (1972b) the period 1962-72.

     The readiest contemporary account of public libraries is given by Dobbie (1993). The paper includes a list of references and further reading which draws attention to current issues in the field. Keith Davison (1991) gives the results of a survey run amongst 500 public libraries in Australia and New Zealand, recording the new services that had been established between 1985 and 1990.

     There is general agreement on the functions and purposes of a public library, despite the increasing divergence of opinion politically and economically on how the objectives of the library are to be met. The functions are set out simply in the NZLA's Standards for Public Library Service in New Zealand (1966, 1980). The same ideas expressed in the language of an earlier time, and reflecting different social conditions, may be found in the National Library Service annual report of 1950. The National Library has been active more recently in defining what constitutes a satisfactory library service in its pamphlet A Good District Library: National Library of New Zealand (1990).

     The role of public libraries in relation to society, continuing education in particular, is explored and explained in McKeon (1976). It is examined also by Levett and Braithwaite (1975) who charged the public library system with having increased rather than reduced the gap between information rich and information poor. The rejoinders to their claims in later issues of New Zealand Libraries deserve study.

     University libraries are described by Michael Wooliscroft (1993). Some understanding of the organisation of university libraries may be gained from a text on library management written by the University of Auckland Librarian: Durey (1976). Any description of the state of the university college libraries prior to World War II would be depressing. They were in a condition which was at odds with their age and nominal status in the community. Munn and Barr in their 1934 report dismissed them as 'unimportant' in the lives of their institutions. The story is best taken up immediately after the war. A representative of the new generation of university librarians has given an account of the period 1945-59: Sandall (1959).

     Some progress was made in the period that Sandall describes, but the condition of the libraries was still poor enough to attract criticism from Andrew Osborn in his 1960 survey report. The criticism, directed more at the university authorities than at the library managers, related to levels of funding. The cumulative effect of low funding over many years left libraries with weak collections, incapable of supporting advanced studies and research. Two surveys of library resources were commissioned, the first in 1972 by the Vice Chancellors' Committee, the second in 1982 by the Committee of New Zealand University Librarians. Both of them were directed by the Otago University Librarian: McEldowney (1973a, 1983).

     In the conditions of the late 1980s it was inevitable that the global approach to university funding and the funding of their libraries would yield to the market approach, leaving each institution to find its own way. Two papers which point the new direction are Elliott (1987) and Durey (1988).

     Special libraries are most comprehensively described by Keitha Booth (1993). However, there is a dearth of recent material about types of special library or individual libraries within the sector. By coincidence the only up-to-date accounts refer to libraries which are working on opposite sides of the circle: Monica Hissink (1991) who describes the disintegration of the government science research structure and the associated libraries, and Barbara Frame (1995) who describes the theological libraries in New Zealand.

Libraries and print culture issues

Libraries, at least those of the public service kind, have regarded themselves as partners in a wider operation: the promotion of print culture, culture in the broadest sense, education, and provision of information. On the other hand, they have, by virtue of their size and their position within the print sector, become embroiled from time to time in fierce debate with other 'partners'. Notable amongst the issues have been library-versus-local bookseller; authors' rights; photocopying and copyright.

     The first of these issues has receded in recent years. In earlier times some booksellers benefited from business arrangements with their local library, indeed some councils insisted as a matter of policy that the library buy from local booksellers. This business has largely disappeared as a result of statutory demands for increased local government accountability, and the parallel development of a specialist market in library supply, which is dominated by overseas suppliers. Shrewder booksellers saw that the local library was adding a fresh dimension to the retail book market, not simply competing with them for a share of a static market.

     The manner in which New Zealand worked its way through the question of authors' rights, known in some other places as 'public lending right', provides an interesting comparison with the experience elsewhere. In the United Kingdom the Library Association and the authors were in opposition, often bitterly so. In New Zealand the libraries responded earlier and in a more positive fashion. Perry (1968a-b) in two articles retailed the history of public lending right around the world, and debated the issue for New Zealand. The initiative taken by the NZLA probably explains why the arguments put to the government by the libraries and by the authors were agreed on two important points: that compensatory grants to authors for the use of their works in libraries should be funded by the state, and that the administration of a scheme should not be a burden on libraries. The Kirk government announced the establishment of the New Zealand Authors Fund in 1973. A good account of the history of the Fund and an account of its work was given by the second Chairman of the Fund's Advisory Board, a former university librarian: Sage (1987).

     The first photocopiers were installed in libraries in the late 1960s. They were not sufficiently convenient or efficient to pose a threat immediately to owners of copyright, but by the mid 1970s the debate was running strongly. A university librarian posed the question: photocopying—the new heresy?: Wylie (1976); the book trade response on behalf of copyright owners, White (1977), employed such terms as 'piracy' and 'theft'.

     Paradoxically the pressure being brought to bear on libraries was reduced as photocopiers became more numerous in the community, and the increase in their practical efficiency multiplied many times the risk of abuse that copyright owners were fearing. It helped that libraries had adopted codes of practice, as White had advocated, and generally shown themselves to be responsible parties. The passing of the Copyright Act 1994 caused libraries to review their procedures, particularly for interloan transactions between libraries. Interloan had increasingly come to mean supply of photocopies rather than lending of original texts. Two informative guides have been published: NZLIA Public Document 1995/7, for libraries in general, and National Library (1995) a guide for schools.

     The attention of the copyright owners came increasingly to be directed at the sectors where the risk and the scale of abuse were very much higher: in the teaching departments of educational institutions. In his 1977 article White had pleaded for a change in the law, shifting the balance in favour of copyright owners, and recommended specifically the introduction of copyright licensing. And so it was to be. Under the auspices of the publishers' representatives in New Zealand a copyright licensing agency was established in 1988, and by 1996, with the added authority of the Copyright Act 1994, it had extended its control comprehensively over the tertiary education sector and was beginning to negotiate with the school system. Gerard Reid (1991) representing publishing interests, explains the possible implications of licensing for libraries.

     Another notable area of public and political pressure was that of control and restriction of publications. This had a curious manifestation during and immediately after World War II. Publications were subject to restriction and control for economic reasons. In the days of our overwhelming dependence on publishing centres in Europe, Australia and America, imports of books and journals were potentially a significant drain on overseas exchange. The role of libraries in a system of control was acknowledged by the Government. The feeling of those times is conveyed in an article which interviews Stanley Unwin, Walter Nash and J.C. Beaglehole: New Zealand Listener ('Importation of books', 1949). A bureau for overseeing and approving the importation of books and journals by libraries was established within the National Library Service, and it continued to operate until 1962, until the principles on which it operated were overidden by New Zealand's adherence to the Unesco Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials.

     The initial signing of the Unesco Agreement was marked by an article in New Zealand Libraries ('End of duties on books in sight', 1950). It was this agreement which protected libraries from import restrictions and from imposition of import duty during the next couple of decades. It was used without success by the New Zealand Library Association in its arguments opposing the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on library materials.

     The more common grounds for restriction of publications have been sedition, blasphemy and indecency. Libraries are among those social institutions which feel the effects of a common impulse amongst human individuals to exercise control over what other individuals read and view. Libraries are subject daily to pressures from users, from governing authorities and from the government.

     The primary point of control, up to the passing of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, was at the border of New Zealand. Customs officers were the censors. Libraries, as recipients of relatively large quantities of overseas publications, were placed in a close relationship with that Department. Libraries were privy, as no other citizens generally were, to the lists of classifications that the Customs Department maintained for their own guidance. A bound collection of these lists is to be found in the collection of Wellington Public Library.

     A description of the state of New Zealand's censorship system, some comparisons with systems elsewhere in the world, and an account of the library profession's views on the matter in that earlier period of censorship policy and administration, are set out in articles in New Zealand Libraries by Horn, Hood, Roth (1949). The 1954 amendment to the legislation, drafted and passed in the wake of the moral panic over the Mazengarb Report, received a commentary from a library point of view: Wylie (1954a).

     The NZLA was involved in the radical review of the legislation that led to the passing of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, and for a period of many years this was reflected in the membership of the Indecent Publications Tribunal. The first librarian who served on the Tribunal was author of the standard work on the Act and the operations of the tribunal: Perry (1965a).

     The mechanisms for control were to undergo further review and change with the appointment of the Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Pornography (1988). The NZLA made a submission to the Committee. An Association statement, 'A question of injury', on which the submission was based, appeared in New Zealand Libraries (NZLA, Intellectual Freedom Committee, 1988).

     And then there is the matter of the enemy within. Do librarians, in exercising the judgment that is necessary for selecting new items for stock or discarding older items from stock, practise a form of censorship? Do they, in the day-to-day administration of their organisations commit small or grosser acts of censorship against the public? These questions were explored in a pair of matched articles: Cauchi (1988) and McKeon (1988).

The National Library of New Zealand

The readiest source of summary information is Susan Bartel (1993). The Library as a major government agency is required to publish a corporate plan and to furnish an annual report setting out its policies, programmes and activities. These reports are issued as public documents. Parallel with these are the annual reports of the Trustees of the National Library.

     The institution which came into existence with the enactment of the National Library Act 1965 was a merging of several institutions: the General Assembly Library, the Alexander Turnbull Library, and the National Library Service (itself an earlier merging of the National Library Centre, the Country Library Service, the School Library Service, and the Library School). These were joined in 1989 by the National Film Library.

     A national library was a major structural element in the library system that had been envisaged in the succession of reviews of the country's library services by overseas experts. An even earlier example of a national library model, proposed by the Librarian of the General Assembly Library in 1915, can be seen in Griffith (1987). Later models were provided in the Munn-Barr Report and in the 1960 Osborn report.

     The national library concept was the object of one of the most persistent campaigns pursued by the library profession. It was a campaign which in its later stages became bitterly divisive. The professional opposition that was mounted in the early 1960s against the government's proposal for a national library stemmed from concerns about a loss of identity by the Alexander Turnbull Library and the General Assembly Library. Ironically the situation 30 years later sees the Parliamentary Library existing independently of the National Library, the Alexander Turnbull Library maintaining a clear and strong identity, and many of the elements of the old National Library Service demolished or diminished greatly in importance.

     The various schemes for a national library proposed a monolithic structure, similar to those that existed in other countries. However, it is generally believed that the seed of the National Library as it came to develop in this country was planted well away from a major urban centre, in a rural education scheme that operated in Canterbury in the early 1930s: Alley (1950). The attention of the new Labour government was caught by the idea of books carried to people in rural areas, and by the man at the scheme's frontline. The Country Library Service was established in 1938 to develop the concept nationally. The story of the service is told in Alley (1956) and in several articles in a special issue of New Zealand Libraries (1967). Mention must be made also of a brief note published two years after the latter, which sets out to demonstrate the powerful role played by ministerial advisers in this development: Sutch (1969).

     Further development of the national library concept was an organic and incremental process. The Country Library Service set up a schools section in 1942 to provide specifically for children in rural areas; in 1951 this became the School Library Service. The New Zealand Library School, providing training in librarianship for graduates, began in 1946. The National Library Centre grew in scale as it took over administration of national bibliographical activities, many of them initiated by the New Zealand Library Association or groups of libraries: the National Union Catalogue, the Interloan Scheme, the Union List of Serials in New Zealand Libraries, and the Index to New Zealand Periodicals. This development took the National Library Service to a point where the formation of a National Library from the merger of this and the other national libraries (Alexander Turnbull and General Assembly) seemed a logical progression.

     The NZLA intensified its campaign in the 1950s, to a point where the government agreed to set up a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate the proposition. Perry (1958) provides a summary history of the campaign and a commentary on the report of the Committee. The Association found itself making submissions again in 1961, to a Royal Commission on the State Services; the submissions are set out in NZLA (1961). The Royal Commission's recommendations regarding a national library were published in New Zealand Libraries ('Royal Commission on the State Services', 1962). In 1963 the government announced its intention to form a National Library, and in 1964 appointed the first National Librarian. The enabling Act was passed in 1965. An unusual perspective on the political campaign is provided by the Minister in charge of the Bill at the time: Kinsella (1990). A unique and useful record of the campaign, made by Stuart Perry (1972a), is in the collection of Wellington Public Library. It comprises letters, reports, minutes and other documents accumulated through a long involvement with committees and working parties.

     With the institution firmly established the library profession next turned its attention to the accommodation difficulties of the National Library. At the height of the problem the Library was occupying 13 buildings in Wellington, not one purpose-built. New Zealand Libraries published in 1973 a chronology of the National Library and its buildings in Wellington: Olsson (1973). Conditions were to get much worse before the building in Molesworth Street was opened in 1987. The professional project manager of the Library retails the story of the new building's planning and construction: Alan Smith (1989), and an architect provides an independent appraisal of the completed building: Alington (1988).

     The most comprehensive description of the functions and achievements of the National Library, when it was most active and its influence was most pervasive, can be found in a chapter of the handbook that was supplied to library students: New Zealand Library Association. Certificate Course, Paper A: Library Service in New Zealand (1972).

     The record for the 1980s and 1990s is most readily to be found in the annual reports of the Library. Although they came increasingly to be couched in the language of state corporatism and management-speak, there can be discerned through them a trend away from the classical functions of a national library to those of an agency seeking simply to coordinate the activities of other libraries in the country, and to provide some bibliographical services, where possible on a cost-recovery basis.

     A person wishing to trace the shift in philosophy might find enlightenment in reading the personal statements of successive National Librarians, made on those occasions when fundamental values are exposed, broad policies are sketched and futures are predicted: Alley (1967), Macaskill (1971), McIntosh (1973), Scott (1987, 1991).

     Anyone searching for turning points in a trend as significant as the reformation of the National Library might wish to contemplate the brief and limited debate that occurred in the mid 1970s, about the desirability of developing a national lending library, on the model of the British Library at Boston Spa. Ken Porter (1975) was the advocate; R.W. Hlavac (1977), speaking for a NZLA working party, said in effect 'not like that, and not yet', preferring to see completion of the National Library building, and a strengthening of the Library's role as a coordinator of interloan and as a lender of last resort for research material. The subsequent dispersal of the strong central collection of the Library might be seen as rooted in the latter view of the Library's role.

     National Library strategic policy in recent years has been based amongst other things upon a development doctrine known by librarians as 'resource sharing'. The theory would have it that sharing of resources, by various processes, produces a national information 'stock' which is significantly greater than the sum of the individual parts.

     The Library Interloan Scheme was the first of these processes that was put in place. Initially it was a contractual arrangement between certain libraries, lending and borrowing from one another on roughly equal terms. In time, with the involvement of the National Library and its stock, it grew into a scheme for balancing the strongest and the weakest ends of the library system. Wylie (1981) analyses the patterns of interloan borrowing and lending in the period 1959 to 1979. The joint committee of the National Library and the NZLA/NZLIA, which administered the scheme in the latter years, collects and publishes annual statistics of interloan traffic. Janet Caudwell (1987) shortly after a radical change in the rules of the Interloan Scheme published an article on the state and likely future of the Scheme.

Information technology

Libraries were early users of computers, initially for recording the lending of library materials, later for providing bibliographical records and indexing, and latterly for communicating with other libraries and providing online services to users.

     In 1994 the National Library began development of the National Document and Information Service (NDIS). The system, a joint venture with the National Library of Australia, was to provide public on-line access to information databases in libraries and other agencies, and incorporate the existing functions of the New Zealand Bibliographic Network. It was an ambitious concept. Technical difficulties and consequential financial problems brought the project to an end in 1997.

     The literature carries numerous references to specific applications, too many to cite here. The first development of note was NZBN, the New Zealand Bibliographic Network—a communications system and central database which was launched in 1982. The effect that NZBN had upon library operations was traced through a series of articles in New Zealand Libraries in 1983 and 1985: Randell and Clendon (1983), Dunlop (1985), Napp and Reilly (1985), Blackwood (1985).

     The National Library formed a working party to examine trends in information techonology and the effects that they might have on the way in which libraries work. Their report in December 1990 National Library: Information Technology Futures Working Party provides a fair description of the situation at that time, but the scant references to the Internet betray the age of the document. The 1996 report of an N Strategy study group on the Internet makes good that omission: Alastair Smith, Pattie, Mosley (1996). The copyright complications of library use of the Internet are examined by Suzy Frankel (1996).

Book buyers and collectors

Book buying

The inseparable forces of demand and supply mean that in many ways the pattern of buying (and selling) New Zealand books is at the same time the pattern of publishing in New Zealand, and some of the issues raised here are discussed more fully under 'Economics' in Chapter 3, 'Publishing'. Unfortunately neither perspective is well documented at a national level on a consistent, regular basis, even for the more recent period when publishing has developed into a strong local and export activity. There are many opportunities for further research and analysis of these patterns, and also of the imported book trade as part of the total book market.

     Part of the explanation for the lack of national statistics and analysis lies in the history of the organisations that support the trade and represent the publishers and booksellers—groups whose affiliations have fluctuated regularly, especially over the last 20 years. A broad picture of this history can be found in part 4 ('The Issues') of the Rogers's Turning the Pages (1993). A more specific reason is the apparent difficulty in obtaining information from the book trade itself, for whatever reason—perhaps commercial sensitivity, or perceived lack of importance. In New Zealand Publishing News (1977-93) Gerard Reid, Executive Director of the Book Publishers Association, refers regularly to the difficulty in getting replies to survey questionnaires, and also to his efforts over many years to get the Department of Statistics interested in improving the quality of industry data.

     Finally, in 1987, the Department conducted its first (and only) comprehensive census of book publishers, distributors and sellers, identifying a total turnover of $525 million. The Department's 1987 survey of household expenditure also recorded expenditure on publications, broken down by a range of types. Among these, the lowest level of purchasing (0.2% of households) was on dictionaries and thesauri and the highest (77.6% of households) on newspapers. Most recently, Statistics New Zealand has provided information on the book trade (termed 'Literature') within the Framework for Cultural Statistics: New Zealand Cultural Statistics 1995 (1995, 'Literature' pp.55-66), and a partial update Household Spending on Culture 1996 , both published jointly with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Some of the information is dated and data limitations are noted. Plans for further published updates are not yet finalised. However, detailed statistics on the trade are collected on a ongoing but selective sample basis (as part of the Annual Enterprise Survey) and can be supplied on request. At an aggregated level 'big figures' for the book trade can be found in Statistics New Zealand's annual Business Activity Statistics (1991-) and the annual Official Yearbook provides a brief outline, sometimes supplemented by special topics such as (in 1995) a comparison of costs of paperback novels: New Zealand at $19.95 second only

to Germany ($21.13).

     By international standards, New Zealanders buy relatively more of the newspapers, magazines and books they read. A survey reported on by the New Zealand Book Publishers Association, cited in the New Zealand Book Council's Newsletter no.41 for September 1981, established that in the year July 1979 to June 1980, people spent on books $63 per capita, below the highest ranked (Sweden, at $80) but twice the figure for Australia. In the 1995/96 year expenditure per household was $380.64, of which about half was spent on books. An interesting trend over the last ten years is the increase in expenditure on magazines, which now exceeds expenditure on newspapers.

     One of the few published reviews of the contemporary retail trade is Harold White's 'The Distribution of Books in New Zealand' (1974). Following on from that, and despite the difficulties in obtaining data from the trade, New Zealand Publishers News remains a useful source of publishing and therefore book buying information for the period 1969-90. For example, the December 1984 issue records total annual sales of $16 million, 5.5 million 'units', and lists the seven major outlets, led by Whitcoulls. The October 1983 issue analyses New Zealand titles published 1969-82 under 25 categories, of which the most prolific in 1982 was Political Science/Political Economy (15% of the total, over 100 titles a year); by comparison, Literature was less than 10% (66 titles). In 1969 the same two categories were 13% (46 titles) and 4.5% (16 titles). 'Flat' categories include biography, travel, and business titles. Other questions arise from these figures, such as why 1,107 titles were published in 1981 but only 765 in 1982.

     Other nuggets of information include: school textbook sales ($5.8 million in 1983, i.e. 36% of total sales); domestic books as a proportion of domestic sales (24.6% in 1982, compared with 42.2% in Australia); the import trade (up 86% between 1969 and 1980); the value of UK exports to New Zealand (mainly mass-market paperbacks) totalled over £12 million in 1987. The newsletter also refers to other documents circulated to members of the Book Publishers Association which would be sources of more detailed information. The most recent similar figures (a breakdown of 1993 sales) were supplied by London Bookshops for Whitireia Publishing's First Edition (rev. ed. 1995, p.25), but it is not possible to adequately identify sales of New Zealand publications from imports. 'New Age' is a new category (3%), with children's books (14%) the highest sales of any specific category.

     Complementary information can be found in the publications of the Booksellers' Association and its successor (from 1991) Booksellers New Zealand. Much of the information relates to promotions (especially the Christmas Catalogue, an industry priority) and the subsidiary book tokens business. Sales of book tokens have been a major growth area, rising from $125,000 in 1973 to a peak of $2.75 million in 1993, with tokens seen as an important means of generating new customers.

      The New Zealand Bookseller & Publisher (1968-72), in addition to lists of current publications and Indecent Publication Tribunal decisions, includes articles on a range of general topics such as sale or return, shop presentation, mail-order selling. A particular success reported (in 1971) was the overseas-initiated 'part works' which appeal to people who would not usually buy books. New Zealand Book World (1973-81) initially purported to continue the preceding title, but developed into a general magazine with very few articles on the New Zealand trade. Following its demise, a number of short-lived trade journals were produced in the 1980s until (after a couple of name changes in 1986-88) Booksellers News (1988-) became established as the official newsletter of Booksellers New Zealand. It has developed into far more than its title suggests, increasingly representing publishing as well as bookselling. Since the appointment of Anna Rogers as editor in 1993 there have been many articles of interest, a recent example being Beth Davies's article in the November 1996 issue (no.102, pp.8-11, 14) on the retailing of gay and lesbian material.

     Three relevant market research surveys have been published. The National Research Bureau's Survey of Book Buying In New Zealand (1977) reported its 1976 investigation for the New Zealand Book Trade Organisation (NZBTO) into the buying habits of a representative sample of adults in the four main centres. Survey of Book Buyers in New Zealand (two publications in 1979, one by Don Esslemont) reported on a study by the Market Research Centre, Massey University, for the New Zealand Book Council, of those who entered 31 town or city bookshops in November 1978.

     A 1982 survey for the NZBTO, published as The Book Buyer and Book Buying Patterns In New Zealand (1983), studied 1,054 people who entered bookshops. This survey provides some interesting information on book buyers themselves. Only one third of people enter a bookshop intending to buy—and of these only a third actually purchase something; lost book sales (unavailability of the item and unwillingness to order) are a major concern for the trade. The highest incidence of purchase of children's books is among people in the 40-54 age-group, and the older we are (up to 55) the more hardbacks we buy. In terms of media impact (despite the high rate of newspaper purchase) the survey identifies the New Zealand Listener as the only magazine or newspaper to have a significant reach to book buyers as a whole. Book reviews on Kim Hill's National Radio programme are also known to have an identifiable impact on sales.

     Bestseller lists have always been regularly published in the trade journals and at times in other magazines, such as the New Zealand Listener and Metro . The current largest and most neutral survey of bestsellers is compiled fortnightly by Booksellers New Zealand from a sample of 100 bookshops (out of their 400 membership) and is described in Booksellers News (October 1993, p.14). The five bestselling New Zealand books (according to the 1990 Official Yearbook ) are: Edmonds 'Sure to Rise' Cookery Book (over 3.5 million copies, with 33 editions between 1907 and 1993), Yates Garden Guide (more than a million copies from 1895 to 1995), Whitcombe's Everyday Cookery (1900, 350,000 copies), The Game of Mah Jong (1938, 282,000 copies), and New Zealand Calorie Counter (1974, 266,000). Other bestsellers include school texts, such as Whitcombe's Modern Junior Dictionary, Collins' Clear School New Zealand Atlas (Junior Edition) , and Whitcombe's Atlas Of Geography .

     Bibliographic reference sources, including national bibliographical records (refer to section 'Access tools' in the following chapter) provide a valuable source of information on New Zealand publishing and therefore potential sales at the level of individual titles. For example, educational books bought by families or as sets by schools may be investigated through Ian McLaren and George Griffiths's Whitcombe's Story Books (1984) and Hugh Price's School Books Published in New Zealand to 1960 (1992). Fiction is dominated by overseas-originated paperbacks, but Barry Crump's back country yarns are claimed to have sold in total over a million copies.

     Meaningful analysis of book buying patterns—whether print runs and sales of individual titles, or aggregated by subject area, or over periods of time—will depend on detailed searching of individual publishers' and distributors' records.

Book collectors

Collectors have always constituted a significant minority of local book buyers. To be a collector, it is not sufficient to accumulate a large agglomeration of books. It requires an intentional focus upon some subject, author or category (for example cricket, Katherine Mansfield, incunabula), and a sense of the value of what is acquired, whether monetary, aesthetic, special interest, or professional. Thus a personal library may contain several collections. A valuable collection may also be built up by a group of enthusiasts, such as that of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, at the Ava Railway Station, Petone. However, this section is concerned with individuals, institutional collectors belonging rather to the section on libraries.

     The term 'book collector', interpreted broadly, distinguishes collectors of text materials, printed or handwritten, from collectors of fine art, silverware, and other collectables. Some individuals (among them Turnbull, Hocken, Vogtherr) have nonetheless functioned both as major book collectors and as gatherers of quite different categories of items: Mäori artifacts, porcelain, paintings, and so forth.

     Book collectors in this country have pursued very diverse areas of interest, and for many of these fields, international guides to collecting are available. Even so, New Zealand material has often had a special appeal for local collectors, catered for by locally-produced guides.

     During the past half century, even serious collectors, depending upon their fields of interest, have been able to buy solely within New Zealand. Previously they had to purchase largely from dealers overseas, by mail, or while visiting. Thereby they have brought many valuable books into the country. Some migrants brought substantial personal libraries when they first came. Many such libraries have been dispersed through sale, providing ore for subsequent collectors. Others have been donated to the public, for preservation in institutional libraries. Collectors have enriched in immeasurable ways the cultural resources of the nation.

Categories of collectors

J.C. Beaglehole in 'The Library and the cosmos' (1970) has distinguished between generalists, specialists, and general collectors who also specialise.

     J.E. Traue, in '"For the ultimate good of the nation": the contribution of New Zealand's first book collectors' (1991b), has drawn another kind of distinction, between connoisseurs and 'colonial collectors'. For the connoisseur in the English tradition 'the emphasis was on selection, on choice works and rarities, and collecting was established as a relatively expensive hobby'. The 'colonial collector' on the other hand was concerned to amass and preserve 'anything whatever relating to this colony' (in Turnbull's words), as 'evidence in documentary form' for the nature of the recent past and the fleeting present. By this measure, Turnbull operated as a connoisseur in his ordering of Kelmscott Press publications, and as a colonial in his all-embracing acquisition of New Zealand textual and graphic materials, and artifacts. Vogtherr sought the finest copies he could get, selling off a less desirable copy when he could buy a better one. Hocken was the prime exemplar of the specialist 'colonial collector'.

     Collectors, tout simple , can be contrasted with those who collect in order to write (historians, bibliographers, amateur ornithologists, and so forth), or with pursuers of professional interests (scientists, railway engineers, etc.), who have assembled working collections of one kind or another.

     A further distinction can be made, in retrospect, between those individuals whose collections have been preserved in institutional libraries, and those whose collections have either become dispersed, or else are retained still in private hands. And there are of course presently active collectors, for whose efforts a future generation may well be grateful.

Aids to collecting

The only systematic introductory work is Barry Fischer's Guide to New Zealand Book Collecting and Handbook of Values (1977), which provides a discussion of some major issues, potted biographies of collectable New Zealand authors, a glossary of terms, a short bibliography, a list of dealers, and a valuation of books worth at the time more than $5. The earliest approach to a 'guide' (apart from bibliographies by A.S. Thomson (1859) and J.D. Davis (1887)) had been Charles Rooking Carter's Catalogue of Books on or Relating to New Zealand: To Which is Added Remarks on Book Purchasing and Book Collecting in London (1887). On a more systematic level, J.C. Andersen, in The Lure of New Zealand Book Collecting (1936), had been primarily concerned with what was worth collecting, and its contemporary value, but also discussed the history of various authors and publications, such as McNab and Murihiku .

     Pat Lawlor, like Andersen a central figure among the Wellington literati of his era, offers in Books and Bookmen (1954) entertaining chapters on notable books in his own collection, Bethune's book sales (see below), the 'Churchill auctions' of books and other collectables in November 1941, collecting Katherine Mansfield (with a reference to Guy N. Morris as a collector of her works), on writers and on booksellers. In addition, Lawlor's various 'Wellington' books contain useful information. As a minor book dealer, he issued half a dozen 'NZ Collectors' Monographs' through his Beltane Book Bureau, sometimes under the nom de plume 'Shibli Bagarag', and discussed matters of interest to collectors in his Beltane Bulletin . His own collecting is mentioned below.

     Recent prices for collectable New Zealand books have been provided by Andersen (1936), by Lawlor in The Best New Zealand Books (1948), by Fischer (1977), and in a series of Book Values publications by Andrew Fair, of Bethune's (1948-75), and by Glenn Haszard (1989-96). Booksellers' catalogues, such as Dick White's, for Newbold's Bookshop, Dunedin, are also useful.

     Bibliographies are also vital, notably T.M. Hocken's Bibliography of the Literature Relating to New Zealand (1909, reprinted 1973) with supplements by A.H. Johnstone (1927, reprinted 1975) and L.J.B. Chapple (1938), and A.G. Bagnall's New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960 (1969-85).

     J.H. Bethune's book auction sales have been held in Wellington, with relatively brief interruptions, since 1877, and before that by the firm of Bethune & Hunter, from 1852. Nowadays the sales are held quarterly, organised by John Atkinson. The detailed catalogues are later supplemented with lists of prices realised. The firm holds a run from 1971, but some earlier catalogues survive. Other auction firms sometimes sell books as part of an estate.

     In the 19th century, there were also occasional auctions of consignments of books sent out by British book dealers. Wallace Kirsop has written about 'Bernard Quaritch's Wellington consignment sale' (1981), and about 'Edward Lumley and the consignment trade' in Books for Colonial Readers (1995).

     Antiquarian booksellers within New Zealand that issue catalogues include Smith's Bookshop Ltd (Rowan Gibbs, Wellington), Quilter's Bookshop (Wellington), Otago Heritage Books (George Griffiths, Dunedin), and Brewster's Old, Rare and Interesting Books (Nelson), among others. Anna and Max Rogers's Turning the Pages (1993) provides fuller information.

Collectors as a community of interest

Book collectors being scattered throughout the country, efforts have been made to link them. The Wellington-based New Zealand Ex-Libris Society, at first concerned mainly with bookplates, was established in 1930, changing its name to the New Zealand Ex-Libris and Booklovers' Society in the 1950s. The Society published a number of pamphlets, a newsletter, and at least two issues of a journal, Ex Libris . The more recently founded Slightly Foxed Society meets regularly in Auckland.

     In 1941 Noel Hoggard's periodical The NZ Book Collector lasted for just one issue. A more substantial journal, History and Bibliography , ed. S.D. MacMillan, managed three issues in 1948, including in the third a brief census of collectors. A Roll of Book Collectors in New Zealand (1958) was compiled and published by the New Zealand Ex-Libris and Booklovers' Society, with an introduction by C.R.H. Taylor, the Turnbull Librarian. It provided data on 88 collectors, and a list of current members.

     Apart from such membership lists, the only subsequent listings of collectors would be the mailing lists for Bethune's auction catalogues, and of antiquarian book dealers—doubtless now subject to the Privacy Act 1993.

Studies of collectors

Eric McCormick's The Fascinating Folly: Dr Hocken and his Fellow Collectors (1961) has some wider relevance. McCormick's biography of Turnbull (see below) contains much information about other collectors of his era. V.G. Elliott's article 'Early printed books in New Zealand: some thoughts on the origins of institutional collections' (1982), surveys collections that have gone into institutional or public libraries. Szentirmay's DILSINZ: A Directory of Information and Library Services in New Zealand (1988) goes some way further in listing distinct named donor collections within each institution. However, a more extended and comprehensive guide to such collections is needed.

     Wynne Colgan in The Governor's Gift: The Auckland Public Library 1880-1980 (1980) discusses Sir George Grey's donation of his collection, as well as other important donor collections, now held in the Library's Rare Books Room. The Reed-Dumas collection is mentioned below. The Shaw Collection contains more than 2,300 volumes donated by Henry Shaw (1850-1928), among them 33 European manuscripts, from the 13th to the 16th centuries, 65 incunabula, and 1,450 volumes given by his brother Fred (1849-1927), especially in the areas of English drama and music. (For Henry Shaw, see DNZB , vol.3). Other gifts include James Tannock Mackelvie's, of 'more than 500 books, many on the subject of art', presented in 1885; the music collection of Lewis Roberts Eady (1858-1937), some 600 volumes, 1926; John A. Lee's 'collection of manuscripts, pamphlets, and political papers', 1966, and letters to him from authors, 1972; the Freida Dickens collection of c.2,500 theatre and concert programmes; and Hilda Wiseman's collection of over 1,500 bookplates.

     Barrowman's The Turnbull (1995) provides details about Alexander Turnbull and the more important of the library's numerous later donors:

W.G. Mantell , whose collections, of scientific and literary interest, donated by his widow in 1927, included those of his father W.B.D. Mantell and his grandfather Gideon
Montfort Trimble , who in 1929 donated about 250 early printed books on Italian statecraft
Henry Wright , died 1936, who bequeathed 500 volumes on comparative religion
Arthur Richmond Atkinson , who bequeathed in 1935 some 700 books, mostly English and classical literature, with his other books going to three other Wellington libraries
Sir Joseph Kinsey , died 1936, whose widow and daughter donated his very large collection of modern English literature, art, early printing, travel, polar exploration, and shipping and alpine literature
E.A. Earp , who in 1939 donated his bee library
Robert Trimble , whose daughters in 1941 donated his 1,200 volumes of Irish literature
Robert Hogg , who bequeathed in 1941 his 2,000 volumes of poetry and Scottish literature
Percy Watts Rule , who died in 1953, bequeathing his A. Edward Newton collection.

Art New Zealand (9, 1978, pp.32-55) has several articles on the Library's pictorial research collections.

     The recent booklet published by the University of Otago Library, Rare Books and Special Collections: A Guide for Readers (1994) provides brief information about the main collectors and donors represented:

Willi Fels (1858-1946), who, in about 1946 presented about 400 books, in the areas of history, works on art and literature, translations of classics, and early printing (see McLintock, Encyclopaedia (1966, vol.1, pp.637-8); DNZB (vol.3); H.D. Skinner, Willi Fels, CMG (1946))
Dr Esmond de Beer and his sisters Dora and Mary (see below)
William Ardern Shoults (1839-87), whose collecting emphasised early printing, history, theology, and Greek and Roman authors
John McGlashan (1802-64)
Charles Brasch (see below)
Ernest Webber , who focused on railways

One special area of collecting interest is that covered by Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections , compiled by Margaret Manion, Vera F. Vines and Christopher de Hamel (1989). This very handsome book describes manuscripts in public and private ownership, and explores their provenance. David M. Taylor's The Oldest Manuscripts in New Zealand (1955), which it supersedes, is still of value.

     A useful area for investigation is the archives of antiquarian book dealers, both in this country and overseas. For example, the records of Bernard Quaritch, I and II, of London, in the British Library's manuscript collection, include a 'Customer list arranged by country, 1887-99' (Add. Ms. 64221), and 'Trade/Gents' ledgers, c.1916-35 (64255-57). The archives of Newbold's Bookshop, Dunedin, owned 1938-66 by Dick White, are held in the Hocken Library.

Individual collectors

This section mentions some of the more noteworthy collectors, usually listed in order of date of birth. Unacknowledged sources include biographical articles in McLintock's Encyclopaedia (1966), and in past issues of Who's Who in New Zealand (1908-).

     William Colenso (1811-99) assembled outstanding collections of zoological, botanical and mineral specimens (now in the Hawkes Bay Museum, Napier), a collection of theological and scientific books, which went to the Theological Library of Napier (Andersen in McKay, 1940, p.224), and much printed and manuscript material of all kinds, fragments of which survive in various repositories. Some of his Mäori pamphlets and newspapers went to Henry Thomas Hill, Inspector of Schools, of Napier. Coming to New Zealand in 1835 as the Church Missionary Society's printer, Colenso was subsequently a missionary in Hawkes Bay, later a school inspector. See the biography by Bagnall and Petersen (1948), and the lively note by Johannes Andersen in McKay (1940); and DNZB (vol.1).

     Sir George Grey (1812-98) assembled and donated two major libraries. He was Governor successively of South Australia, 1840-45, of New Zealand, 1845-53, of Cape Colony (and High Commissioner for South Africa), 1854-61, and of New Zealand, once again, in 1861-68. A member of the New Zealand parliament between 1874 and 1890, he served as Prime Minister in 1877-79. By the time he left South Africa, in 1861, he had built up an outstanding collection of general, South African and New Zealand books and manuscripts, which he presented to the Cape Town Public Library. Back in New Zealand, he accumulated a second, almost equally fine library, which he donated as the foundation collection of the reconstituted Auckland Public Library. It comprised 8,000 volumes at the time the new library building was opened on 26 March 1887, and he added another 6,000 by the time he died in 1898. Colgan notes that it included 'a number of valuable books' bequeathed to Grey by the naval captain Sir James Everard Home in 1853, on the condition they would eventually go to a public library.

     His book collecting has been discussed within several biographies, notably those by William and Lily Rees (1892), and by James Rutherford (1961); and see DNZB (vol.1) and Colgan (1980). Donald Kerr, Rare Books Librarian in the Auckland Public Library, has contributed an article on Grey to the forthcoming 19th-century volume of the Dictionary of British Bibliographers and Book collectors (DBBB) , and in 1997 is embarked on a doctoral study of Grey as a collector, and of his collections.

     Sir David Monro (1813-77), who came to New Zealand in 1841, and became Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1861, collected some books himself, but features here as inheritor of the medical books and manuscripts of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all called Alexander Monro, successively Professors of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. See Douglass W. Taylor, The Monro Collection in the Medical Library of the University of Otago (1979).

     Charles Rooking Carter (1822-96), in New Zealand between 1850 and 1864, promoted the settlement of the Wairarapa district, and became a member of parliament. He did most of his collecting after returning to England in 1864. In and after 1890 he gave the New Zealand Institute and Colonial Museum about 1,000 books, transferred to the Turnbull Library in late 1922; see Barrowman (1995). The remainder of his library he bequeathed to the Carterton Borough Library in the Wairarapa town named after him. His Catalogue of Books on or relating to New Zealand . . . (1887) is noted above. See DNZB (vol.1).

     Thomas Morland Hocken (1836-1910) acquired a near-complete coverage of New Zealand printed material, and numerous manuscripts of local interest or to do with early missionaries; and he brought together many drawings, paintings, maps, and photographs. In 1910 he gifted his collections of textual and graphic materials to the University of Otago in trust for the people of New Zealand and these became the basis of the Hocken Library. His Mäori and Polynesian artifacts went to the Otago University Museum. A medical doctor, he had arrived in New Zealand in 1862, and developed wide interests, becoming the author of nine articles and two books (one a collection of lectures published posthumously), mainly in the areas of national and regional history, and the compiler of A Bibliography of the Literature relating to New Zealand (1909).

     Biographies include: W.H. Trimble, Dr Hocken and his Historical Collection (1926); Olga Fitchett, 'Dr Hocken and his work', unpublished MA thesis, Otago University (1928); A.G. Hocken, Dr T.M. Hocken: A Gentleman of his Time (1989); and essays in DNZB (vol.2) and DBBB (forthcoming). Linda Rodda compiled a Calendar of Dr T.M. Hocken's Letters and Documents Preserved in the Hocken Library, University of Otago (1948). W.H. Trimble compiled a Catalogue of the Hocken Library, Dunedin (1912). Annie E. Trimble wrote seven articles on the collections for the Evening Star , Dunedin, in 1910.

     Benjamin Leopold Farjeon (1838-1903), a journalist (in Dunedin 1861-67) and popular novelist, was not himself a book collector; but his family assembled a significant collection of books and memorabilia linked to its members, which is now in the Dunedin Public Library. See A.H. Reed, Ben and Eleanor Farjeon and Dunedin (1973), DNZB (vol.1).

     Sir Robert Stout (1844-1930), a lawyer (Chief Justice 1899-1926) and politician (Premier 1884-87), assembled a collection of nearly 2,000 pamphlets, mainly of the late 19th century. In 1928 he gifted them to the Victoria University of Wellington for its Library. See DNZB (vol.2), Iris M. Park's 1961 study of his collection and Fildes's; and The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout , compiled by K.A. Coleridge (1987). Sir Robert's son, Dr Robert Stout, a physician, also accumulated a valuable collection of books and pamphlets, mainly in the area of New Zealand history, which was gifted in 1969, after his death, to the University, and is now mainly in the J.C. Beaglehole Room (see library leaflet).

     John Macmillan Brown (1845-1935) bequeathed to the University of Canterbury an important collection of about 15,000 New Zealand and Pacific books, also his anthropological collection, and an endowment for their upkeep. One of the three foundation professors of the University of Canterbury, teaching in Classics, English and History (1875-95), in his early retirement due to ill-health, he collected and wrote vigorously in the area of the anthropology of the Pacific Islands. See The Memoirs of John Macmillan Brown (1974), DNZB (vol.2).

     Robert McNab (1864-1917), a lawyer and politician, compiled four books dealing with the history of Southland ( Murihiku ), and with the early history of New Zealand and the South Pacific, particularly with records of exploration, trading, sealing, and whaling. On 9 March 1914 he donated his collection of about 4,000 books, together with newspaper cuttings, etc., relating to these areas, to the Dunedin City Council for the Public Library, with an endowment for further augmentation; see library leaflet, and DNZB (vol.3).

     Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull (1868-1918), born in Wellington, began collecting while in London, and continued to do so after his return in 1892, building up outstanding collections of materials relating to New Zealand, and of Milton and Miltoniana. Coleridge has compiled A Descriptive Catalogue of the Milton Collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library (1980). Other special interests included travel literature, 19th-century fiction and thought, fine printing, Australiana, drama, and Scottish literature and history; and he built a substantial general library, including numerous rare books. In 1913 Turnbull donated more than 500 Mäori and Polynesian artifacts to the Dominion Museum. At his death in 1918 he bequeathed to the nation (nominally to the King) his whole library of over 55,000 books, plus large holdings of manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, maps, prints, drawings, paintings and ephemera.

     This became the Alexander Turnbull Library, subsequently massively enhanced by bequests and purchases; see Barrowman (1995). Turnbull items in its manuscript section include three letterbooks (1891-1900), an acquisition book (1898-1902), correspondence, and dealers' invoices. Turnbull has been the subject of a major biography by McCormick (1974), and of sundry articles in the Turnbull Library Record ; see also DNZB (vol.2) and DBBB (forthcoming).

     Frank Wild Reed (1874-1953), who came to New Zealand in 1887 and became a pharmacist in Whangarei, collected more than 4,000 manuscripts and books by or about Alexandre Dumas the elder (1802?-70), eventually bequeathing his collection, the largest outside Paris, to the Auckland Public Library. Reed compiled the first comprehensive bibliography of Dumas, and translated into English his 72 known plays. See Colgan (1980), and Donald Kerr (1996).

     Sir Alfred Hamish Reed (1875-1975), a younger brother of Frank Wild Reed, was a Dunedin bookseller and from 1925 an important publisher—see Chapter 3, 'Publishing'. From 1907 he collected bibles, medieval manuscripts and early printed works of a religious nature, hymnbooks, Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, 'association' books, and autograph letters by authors and other notable people. In 1948 he donated these to the Dunedin City Council for the Public Library, as the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection, and organised a trust and other endowments to preserve and augment it and fund appropriate publications. The tenth such publication, by A.H. Reed himself, Rare Books and Manuscripts: The Story of the Dunedin Public Library's Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection (1968) is an extensive revision of chapters 20-22 of An Autobiography (1967), plus additional material. A Catalogue of Mediaeval Manuscripts and Printed Bibles in this collection, by Christopher de Hamel, with Bible entries compiled by Bettina M. Johnstone, was published in 1977. See also DNZB (vol.3).

     Horace Manners Edward Fildes (1875-1937) accumulated more than 1,800 volumes, mainly reflecting his consuming interest in the early history of New Zealand, but extending to Pacific exploration and travel, and other related topics. The collection includes scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, and annotated working copies. He bequeathed his library to the Victoria University of Wellington. His indexes have been published by the VUW Library in 1984. There are studies of Fildes and his collection by Park (1961) and by Coleridge (1985).

     William Downie Stewart (1878-1949) built a substantial library with special strengths in law and theories of government. He was a Dunedin lawyer, member of parliament, and in 1925-28 and 1931-33 Minister of Finance. In early 1997 his library was dispersed by sale.

     Patrick Anthony Lawlor (1893-1979), journalist, man of letters, and miscellaneous author, assembled a substantial library, with strengths in New Zealand poetry (the Hocken library has a checklist), and in the works of Thomas à Kempis. A Roll of Book Collectors (1958) calls this 'one of the choicest private libraries in the country, apart from its size, some 12,000 titles', adding 'he has a well-arranged file of autograph letters, photos, and cuttings by or on authors', and 'good files of periodicals'. Most of the letters were lodged 1961-62 in the Turnbull Library manuscript collection, which also has Lawlor's 'Egotistical extracts' (typescript dated July 1974), which details the dispersal of his other collections. See DNZB (vol.4, forthcoming).

     Esmond Samuel de Beer (1895-1990), born in Dunedin, became a distinguished historical scholar in London, and built up a fine collection of books of the 16th to 18th centuries, related to his editing of the Diary of John Evelyn (1955), and of Correspondence of John Locke (8 vols, 1976-89). In 1959, de Beer bought and gave to the Otago University Library the Iolo A. Williams collection of 18th-century poetry, strengthening this resource with subsequent gifts. In 1983 and 1984 he donated his own collections to the Otago University Library. Diana Dekker, in 'Dr de Beer prepares to shift', mentions the gifts of paintings to the Dunedin Art Gallery, and the despatch of 70 cases of books. Keith Maslen described the donation in BSANZ Bulletin (1983). The University Library has printed checklists for the de Beer collection dated 1963, 1979 and 1984. Michael Strachan's Esmond de Beer (1995) includes a bibliography. See also DNZB (vol.4, forthcoming).

     Ernest George Frederick Vogtherr (1898-1973) was a Napier businessman forced into early retirement by ill-health, who devoted himself to collecting and wrote a lively account, Your Bid, Sir!! (1969), of his acquisitions of books, porcelain and paintings.

     Frederick Burdett Butler (1903-82) of New Plymouth is said to have owned 80,000 books, many to do with local history. Many were sold to the Hocken Library; others went to the New Plymouth Public Library, or the Taranaki Museum, or were dispersed.

     Charles Orwell Brasch (1909-73), born in Dunedin, a nephew of Dr de Beer, was a poet, and founder and editor of the literary periodical Landfall . His personal library of about 7,000 titles, bequeathed to the Otago University Library, features art, literature (especially New Zealand poetry), history and religion.

     Austin Graham Bagnall (1912-86), librarian, bibliographer and historian, brought together a large collection of titles in national and local history, which is now in the Massey University Library, Palmerston North.

These notes on collectors no longer alive omit many notable individuals on whom there is work to be done. Of the numerous significant collectors of the present day, only a few are mentioned here:

     Paul Aubin of Dunedin has substantial collections of boys' adventure fiction, comics, NZ children's fiction and adult fiction, and books and other materials relating to cricket.

     Ray Bailey of Palmerston North has a substantial collection of New Zealand fiction.

     John Barton of New Plymouth has brought together a collection of incunabula in his Dalberton Library, a catalogue of which was published in 1995. He also collects early New Zealand printed works, especially those in Mäori.

     Colin Dennison of Dunedin is among those with a notable Antarctic collection.

     Ian Farquhar of Dunedin has a collection of items, including many photographs, dealing with Australian and New Zealand registered ships, and the overseas lines that have traded to these countries since 1860. It is essentially concerned with the age of steam, with a lesser accent on sailing ships.

     Rowan Gibbs of Wellington has a collection of New Zealand fiction and of New Zealand children's books, also of editions of The Swiss Family Robinson .

     Robin Gwynn of Palmerston North has important collections of philatelic history and Huguenot history, and also some early medieval manuscripts.

     Peter Lineham of Palmerston North has collections focussed on New Zealand religious history, and on 18th-century English religious history.

     The Len Lye Foundation has an archive of writings by and about the late Len Lye, as well as a collection of his films, paintings, drawings and kinetic sculptures, lodged in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth.

     Dave McLaren of Dunedin, author of A Handbook of Rugby Literature (1st ed. 1985, 2nd ed. 1990) has an important rugby football collection.

     Basil Poff of Palmerston North has collections in New Zealand history and in mountaineering.

     Susan Price has written Books for Life: The Story of a Collection of Children's Books Donated to the National Library of New Zealand (1991), relating to her collection of books in English published in the last 50 years, some 5,000 titles at the time of donation, since grown to 10,000. It supplements the National Library's collection of children's books, many published much earlier, named after the librarian Dorothy Neal White.

     Robin Startup of Masterton has a fine collection in the areas of post office and philatelic history.

     John Mansfield Thomson built up a substantial collection relating to musicology and music printing, most of which was donated to the Victoria University of Wellington Library in 1983 and 1995.

     Russell Vine of Christchurch has a major sports collection.

     Other noted collectors in the music field include John Steele of Cambridge (formerly of Otago University), Brian Pritchard (University of Canterbury), Adrienne Simpson (theatre, opera), and Jeremy Commons, both of Wellington.

     A number of scientists have built up significant libraries, not necessarily confined to their areas of specialisation, among them, in addition to those individuals mentioned in the 1958 Roll , the late David Macmillan, and A.D. Thomson, both of Christchurch, and D.J. Galloway of Miller's Flat.