I graduated in 1973 with MA Honours in History from the University of Auckland, and with the Diploma of the New Zealand Library School in 1974. I still work as a librarian, unlike most of my class, who quite quickly moved on to other occupations. Penny Griffiths, Kevin Jones, Hilary Stace (two fellow speakers) and Ross Somerville were fellow students. Others who stayed in libraries now include City Librarians and one Head University Librarian. I have worked specifically with New Zealand material at Auckland City Libraries since 1989.

Main centre public libraries have a wide range of people visit them for information relevant to the history of New Zealand. They can be academics and other teachers, public historians, students from a range of educational institutions and those from the burgeoning family history area. This information can be published in books, periodicals or newspapers, or unpublished in manuscripts, photographs, maps etc. Increasingly, information is also accessed through the library website; through library-produced content such as indexes (one of my areas of responsibility), images online and links to other websites.

More recently I added an additional string to my bow, becoming a book reviewer for the Sunday Star Times. In the latter role I appear to be its main reviewer of New Zealand non-fiction, with over 45 reviews published in the last 12 months. I know that other PHANZA members also moonlight as book reviewers.

My first published book review was in the Auckland suburban newspaper the Western Leader, of 26 August 1976, while Librarian-in-Charge at Te Atatu North Library in West Auckland. I continued to write short reviews for it until I left Te Atatu in the second half of 1977. From 1978 to 1983 I was instead a reviewer for the National Library’s monthly Fiction List. This provided libraries with a buying guide to new fiction.

From 1984 to 1988 I was the Books Editor for a Labour Party magazine called Labour Network. One of the editors was Peter Davis, whose wife went on to follow some political role. Helen someone... My column, believe it or not given this was the time of Rogernomics, was entitled ‘What’s Left to Read’, although I reviewed few books that could be labelled as ‘left’, and even less reviewed them in a ‘left’ manner. The magazine folded in 1988.

More recently I have had reviews published in the Auckland Waikato Historical Journal, the New Zealand Genealogist and the New Zealand Journal of History, and am open to the occasional review elsewhere.

Thus, as a librarian I am part of the process that determines how many of your books we have at the biggest public library system in New Zealand, and as a reference librarian recommend which is useful for what. As a book reviewer for a major New Zealand newspaper I also advise people whether they should read your books.

Welcome changes, and some unwelcome changes, in the availability of published material on the history of New Zealand, but facts not analysis!

All praise to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, both hard copy and online. This project has encouraged much new biographical research, often by people who originally provided that person’s entry for the Dictionary. I am sure the new Online Encyclopedia will in a similar way promote the writing of local histories.

We should also acknowledge the assistance given by agencies of local government, which over the years have contributed to the funding of local histories. The 1940 centennial of Pakeha settlement produced many provincial and local histories, while the 1976 centennial of many counties saw a further outpouring of regional histories. There have also been a number of official histories of boroughs and cities. More recently the Otago and Canterbury 150 years celebrations produced local histories.

This unfortunately wasn’t adopted in Auckland, which still lacks a comprehensive official history. Russell Stone has, however, in his various and definitive works, largely covered at least the nineteenth century. Graham Bush has also produced monumental histories of the Auckland City Council.

The success of PHANZA and a public history degree course at the University of Victoria are just two further symptoms of an upsurge in interest in local history. I am also sure that there is a strong spin-off from the ever-increasing interest in family history. The relative ease of producing books on personal computers, with readily available photograph scanners and publishing software, has led some family historians to include local history in their published family histories. However, they have very limited print runs and not all are reported to the National Library.

However, while we have appeared to have a greater interest in local history, have we had quality? Many regional histories and biographies fail to place their geographic area or the circumstances of individuals in any wider context. That context can be economic, social, cultural, political or even group psychological. We also have all seen examples of local histories that suddenly begin with the arrival of Pakeha settlers, ignoring an often-extensive Maori settlement of the area.

My favourite example is a book about a part of South Auckland, which basically starts with Pakeha settlement in the 1850s, and ignores any Maori settlement before then. It also ignores the immediate effects of the move to war in 1863 with the forced departure of local Maori residents. Local Maori were given the option of immediately declaring allegiance to the British and handing over any guns, or exile to south of the mouth of the Waikato River. Most Maori in the Manukau Harbour area, and on the North Shore, chose exile.

Very often books give no sources for checking the validity of the information provided, and no index to allow access to what are often hidden gems of information. Footnotes and bibliographies are also ignored, or done poorly.

When looking at what is available for review, we need to look at the publishing industry. When researching this area I quickly found that meaningful statistics are few and far between, a point commented on even within that industry. According to Official Yearbooks, during the 1990s at least 35 per cent of all the books sold in New Zealand were actually published here. An average New Zealand print run in 1986 was 5000 copies; while in the 1990s this shrank to an average of 3000. I understand one recently published, and well-received, local history had a print run of only 1000 copies. Others here in the audience may well have similar stories.

We are past the glory days of New Zealand publishing. From 1980 to 1986 the numbers of New Zealand titles published rose 123 per cent. By 1992 there were over 4000 New Zealand titles received by the Legal Deposit Office of National Library. This has now stabilised as for 1999 to 2001 National Library reported between 4000 and 5000 per annum. In 2001 the Books Publishers’ Association had around 60 registered members. In 1999, official figures claim 62 commercial publishers, and another 840 enterprise (public and private sector) or, significantly, individual publishers.

How many of the titles published are works of fiction it is very difficult to determine. Each month the New Zealand National Bibliography includes a lot more non-fiction titles than fiction, but includes annual and bi-annual publications. Annual reports are in fact excluded from National Library’s numbers of books per annum. They are instead included in the 80,000-odd separate issues of periodicals and magazines published during that year.

In the area of local history publishing there is still the continued support for more academic orientated material from the different university based presses, and opportunity given to the non-academic by high quality commercial publishers e.g. Reeds, David Ling, Bridget Williams etc.

As we have already noted, technological changes have encouraged many individuals to self-publish, or relatively cheaply have published, material in the local history area. Many such local histories and biographies are comparatively well produced physically, are often well written, and contain many previously unpublished photographs. Some, however, are little more than unstructured personal reminiscences published at the author’s own expense, or at the expense of their local historical society.

As a librarian, my responsibility is to recommend for purchase anything that is published concerning the history of the greater Auckland area, and selectively for elsewhere in New Zealand. Often a second-rate book, or one grossly out of date, is all that I can offer for students or family historians wanting background information on a particular suburb or region.

Reviewing the reviewers, or do I?

As a reviewer I don’t identify myself with Auckland City Libraries. I label myself as ‘an Auckland librarian’. Auckland, because that is where I live, and the region I think I know most about. A librarian, because that gives some notion of professionalism. If I described myself as a member of PHANZA it would mean nothing to most readers.

However, power always needs to be matched with responsibility. If reviewers rubbish a book that other people enjoy, then their credibility is on the line, and also if they over-praise. There are always the fears that if one is too negative will that author ever want to publish again? Most likely we don’t have that power, thank goodness, but with only a limited commercial book market in New Zealand any disincentive can have an effect. Also, if we over-praise it may mean that authors set their sights too low next time.

I sympathise with fellow PHANZA members when financial imperatives may mean that you haven’t as many photographs published as you wanted, or that research costs imposed by different institutions, including my own, have reduced your ability to track down every reference. Also, your funding body may have imposed limits as to how extensive their official history is to be.

However, as the history industry grows, and hopefully demands for quality increase, I believe we reviewers outside academia must become more forthright when identifying both academic and non-academic histories and biographies which don’t come up to standard, for whatever reasons.

A prime responsibility for a reviewer is also to alert people to books they may at first disregard, or not know about. Some raise an artificial academic versus non-academic debate. I prefer to include works by academics, and or academic presses, and introduce them to a more general audience. Although some of the post-colonial or deconstruction jargon may pass people by and sometimes me (after all I studied Marcuse, not Derrida), there is still always material of interest in such publications.

One of the major problems when writing a review is lack of space. I have now near accurately gauged the column length I will be allocated, and write to suit, but nearly always some bit of it is edited out. Partially as a consequence of this it often takes me as long to write a tightly worded review as it does to actually read the book. I also take a bit of time to try and figure out what is actually going on here, and avoid initial reactions or responses.

Nevertheless, when I read my prose on Sunday mornings, I often say, ‘hey, they missed out that particular point I wished to make’. My cat, in cooler days normally on my lap at that time, smiles indulgently and goes back to sleep. Still there is the prestige of an estimated New Zealand-wide circulation of 220,000-odd for the Sunday Star Times, and a readership two to three times that. The Saturday copy of the New Zealand Herald echoes those figures.

Usually I am asked by Iain Sharp, who looks after the Sunday Star Times book pages, if I would like to review a particular book. By now he has a shrewd guide as to what interests me, although I am prepared to push out the envelope. I sometimes also review something received in the library that takes my fancy, and which hasn’t crossed Iain’s desk.

A criticism made recently is that not enough works by women authors feature in reviews. I think that it is an unfortunate fact of the publishing industry that women are still less published than men are, particularly in non-fiction. This is especially unfortunate given that surveys show that women read more book titles than men do.

My personal philosophy, or rather ideology, of reviewing is almost of bumper sticker simplicity. Read it all, cover to cover, give honest responses and don’t read anyone else’s review of the book until you have filed the review. Too many reviews I have read, and currently read, suggest that the reviewer didn’t get to the last page, or read just the first and last chapters. Others appear to lean heavily on the publisher’s blurb. I do read the blurb, but it is more to see if the promise of the book actually stacks up. Quite often it doesn’t, and I say so. Still others lean very heavily on reviews they have read off the Internet, or as the redoubtable Merv Smith says in the advertisement for the PSIS, ‘that Interweb thing’.

There also is the issue whether you are reviewing the book, or trying to write your own book instead, with the review as an excuse. If you have ever read reviews in for example the Times Literary Supplement, which go on for pages without much reference to the book, or books, they are supposed to be reviewing you will know what I mean. I confess that I opt for a conservative approach on this. I believe that people want to know what the author is writing about, and my views on whether they are successful in that. They don’t want to read my own limited views on the issue itself. Too often in overseas publications ‘big name’ reviewers from the media, politics or academia present their own views, and obscure what the author is actually saying. Some even resort to ad hominem attacks. This doesn’t happen too much here, although we have all seen the odd example of it.

Still another issue is, are you describing the book or criticising it? Yes, you need to describe it to criticise it, but I find that column space often prevents me from exploring in depth what I think may be wrong in the author’s conclusions, or detail errors of fact. Such reviews are really more for the bi-annual New Zealand Journal of History and the quarterly New Zealand Books, although the weekly Listener does give space for such reviews.

You may be familiar with Booksellers New Zealand’s monthly Book Review Clipping Service. This provides poorly photocopied reviews from the five main centre newspapers, the National Business Review, the Sunday Star Times and the Listener, as well as details of the books featured on National Radio. A casual browse is most informative if you want to quickly see where the current New Zealand book reviewing industry is.

I am sure that I have no unique abilities when it comes to reviewing books, and keep telling myself that I am only as good as my last review. Doing reviews for the Sunday Star Times has given me a greater insight and appreciation of the world of journalism, with deadlines, being edited and how words are so important. Useful in my library persona where I have regular contact with those who write for, say, Metro. Recently I had a journalist who had forgotten her library card and instead informed me that she worked for the Sunday Star Times. I felt rather chuffed to answer her with – “Oh what a coincidence, so do I”.

Conclusion, pretentious in extremis!

I believe reviewers are as much guardians of New Zealand history as my fellow librarians, archivists and curators who store and provide access to that information, and my fellow historians who interpret that information. Reviews in newspapers are often the only feedback many local historians receive, as they lack peer review from academic institutions and journals. The only other feedback is the blunt instrument of sales.

Hence, reviewers who include New Zealand history in their reviewing portfolio should consider being members of PHANZA. PHANZA should in turn be looking at devising professional standards for reviewers of New Zealand history, to assist us in lifting our game, and I offer to assist in that process. After all, each in our own way is a guardian of New Zealand history.