Beaglehole Library and Nobel Prizes

Beaglehole Library shifts to 4th floor of Victoria University Library

On Thursday I had the privilege of attending the opening of the new Beaglehole Library.  For its collection of books on early New Zealand history, it is one of the best research libraries in the world, in my humble opinion, and it is fitting that it should be in the same city as the amazing Alexander Turnbull Library, which has an astounding collection of manuscripts and images.

I have spent many happy hours at the Beaglehole over the years, and was perfectly accustomed to heading down to floor 1 -- the orlop deck, as it were, of the library building.  Now the research library is on the fourth floor, sharing great views over the city and harbor, though the focus is inwards, of course.

Well, there were lively speeches, and Tim Beaglehole cut the ribbon, and then I joined a quick tour of the back rooms, usually forbidden territory.  Absolutely fascinating. 

What intrigued me most of all was a display of Alan MacDiarmid memorabilia, including his baby booties (truly!), his typewriter, and his Nobel Prize certificate.  It was the first Nobel Prize I had ever seen, a very grand affair, with cursive calligraphy (hand done) on the righthand side, and an original work of art on the left.

Alan Macdiarmid (1927-2007, pictured on the left) was a Kiwi who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000, jointly with Hideki Shirakawa and Alan Heeger (center and right, respectively), their accomplishment being the discovery that plastics can be made electrically conductive.

The artist, Nils G. Stenqvist, created the other two certificates, too.  You can view them on the Nobel Prize website.

Plaudits for Tupaia

Best books

First, Tupaia is included in the Listener list of The 100 Top Reads of 2011.

It's in the History category.

Tupaia: the Remarkable Story of Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator:

Tupaia was the go-between who played a major role in placating Tahitians when the first English ship reached the island, and later proved an invaluable asset as James Cook's endeavour sailed to New Zealand and Australia.  He deserved a full biography, and thanks to Druett's meticulous research he now has one that is comprehensive and highly readable.

The Listener did not include the wonderful jacket image in the spread, but never mind, the latest Te Papa newsletter features it in its link to Te Papa store:

TE PAPA STORE READ MORE

<><><><><> <><><><><>

The New Zealand Coast Calendar 2012 $19.99

The Wedding Dress: 300 Years of Bridal Fashions $85

Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator $55

The Margaret Mahy Treasury $45

And at the same time a review came in from Doryanthes, A Periodic Southern Sydney Journal of Art, Heritage, and Natural History 

Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator

We tend to forget that English was probably not the first non-indigenous language to be spoken on the shores of Kurnell in April 1770.  Aboard the Endeavour was a Ra’iatean nobleman and priest named Tupaia.  He had served James Cook well as a navigator, interpreter and cultural intermediary from Tahiti to New Zealand.  Cook hoped that he might again serve him well as an interpreter at Kurnell.  Unfortunately the Tahitian-Ra’iatean branch of the great Polynesian group of languages was no use among the Dharawal-speaking Gweagal.

Tupaia has recently become the subject of a beautifully written biography by New Zealander Joan Druett.  It is the product of a great deal of patient historical research, using sources dating back to the visit of Samuel Wallis to Tahiti in June 1767.  It is also enriched by a wealth of contextual post-contact ethnographic scholarship. I can thoroughly recommend it.  Furthermore, it is a must for our local studies collection. 

Edward Dyker (author of Natures' Argonaut, the definitive biography of Solander)


And, the New Zealand  historian's newsletter 'Phanzine' has listed favourite titles for Christmas.  Margaret Pointer recommends Tupaia.  She says 'Wellington writer Joan Druett provides a different insight into Cook's first great voyage by focusing on Tupaia and the relationship between the European explorers and the Polynesians they took on board.'

e-Book sales figures fall

What is one to make of the latest trends?

Back in May 2011, Julie Brosnan wrote in her New York Times, "There is a Wild West quality to the book business these days."

She was talking about her experiences at BookExpo, the annual publishing trade show in Manhattan.

"E-Books have exploded," she said.  For some new releases they were surpassing print sales. "The struggle for many brick-and-mortar bookstores has deepened as their customers began downloading books onto their e-Readers from home, rather than heading to stores."

I can attest to this personally.  The friend for whom I always buy books as presents now has a Kindle.  What the hell am I going to give her for Christmas?

The impressive figures for eBooks encompass romance, thrillers, and mysteries.  They have not yet, thank God, penetrated the children's book market.

And a bit of confusing data has arrived.  According to Publishers Lunch, the American Association of Publishers has just announced that sales of eBooks has gone DOWN.  Last August (2010), the figure was $88.8 million.  This August, the figure was $80.3 million.  E-Book sales are currently just 15.6% of all recorded trade sales.

How to account for it?  We must remember that while here in New Zealand the universities are oases of quiet and peace, the summer vacation having commenced, in the northern hemisphere millions of students are busily buying textbooks.

Significantly, perhaps, two university presses, Stanford and University of Nebraska, have been added to the AAP database.

Upheaval at the New York Public Library

Construction ahead of collections?

One of my favorite libraries for research looks horribly endangered, according to this story in The Nation.

In July 2010, Hilde Hoogenboom, a professor of Russian literature at Arizona State University, sent an impassioned missive to Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, to protest the closure of the NYPL¹s Slavic and Baltic division. It "was one of the best places to work in the world," she wrote.

Indeed, in the universe of Russian studies, the Slavic division was legendary. "I recall [it] as an agreeably dim sort of place, with a faintly reverential, almost cathedral-like ambience," George Kennan said in 1987.

Among its 750,000 items are the first book printed in Moscow, the "Anonymous" Gospels; a first edition of Tolstoy¹s War and Peace; and John Reed¹s collection of broadsides and posters from the Russian Revolution.

Trotsky and Nabokov toiled in the division¹s reading room. Václav Havel and Mikhail Gorbachev made visits of tribute.

Eleven weeks after Hilde Hoogenboom's letter was sent, a senior NYPL official replied on LeClerc¹s behalf: "If I may put this matter into its sadly grim financial context, in the last two fiscal years our budget has been reduced by $20 million and our workforce by 300 positions. While we recognized and prized the special cultural and scholarly resource that was the Slavic Reading Room, we simply could no longer afford to operate it."

 (It reminds me of the letter I received from Yale when I applied for a minor research grant -- they had lost an uncounted fortune -- in the Madoff scam, I gathered -- and couldn't afford anything like that any more.) 

The New York Public Library, which comprises four research libraries and eighty-seven branch libraries, has seen other cutbacks as well. Since 2008 its workforce has been reduced by 27 percent. In a recent newsletter to library supporters, the institution reported that its acquisitions budget for books, CDs and DVDs had been slashed by 26 percent.

And this is the Believe It or Not moment.

Despite these austerity measures, NYPL executives are pushing ahead with a gargantuan renovation of the Forty-second Street library, the crown jewel of the system. The details of the Central Library Plan (CLP) are closely guarded, but it has already sparked criticism among staff members, who worry that the makeover would not only weaken one of the world¹s great libraries but mar the architectural integrity of the landmark building on Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in 2008, following the Wall Street billionaire¹s gift of $100 million.

Mr. S.A.S. is obviously no Andrew Carnegie.  Can't he have given the money for the preservation of collections, instead of wanting his name plastered all over the iconic building?

I see that (a) he was in the Skull and Bones Society with GWB
(b) he was head of Lehman Brothers

Say no more. 

Eavesdropping made easy ...

In view of the News of the World scandal, this is not exactly a surprise

A burgeoning global trade in eavesdropping technology produced largely by U.S. and other Western companies -- and minimally regulated by the U.S. government -- has allowed sophisticated surveillance tools to end up in the hands of repressive regimes in Syria, Iran and elsewhere.

(Not to mention feral journalists.)


Company sales brochures, provided to The Washington Post by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, show that few forms of electronic communication are beyond the reach of the buyers of these powerful products. The industry faces little scrutiny by the U.S. and other governments, and countries banned from buying surveillance products from U.S. companies can obtain them through intermediaries.


Read more

The Magna Carta and the Constitution

How could a historic document signed by an English king in 1215 be important to America?

Well, okay, the Magna Carta is a founding document in the story of human rights and liberties -- in America as well as England.  But that was in the Middle Ages!  Surely it didn't have a direct influence on the wording of the Constitution?

 If you have a look at the Declaration of Rights in the Maryland Constitution of 1776, however, clause 21 rings a definite echo.

It reads:

"That no freeman ought to be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land."

Environmentally conscious printer wins award

Soar Printing wins ‘Medium business’ award at Sustainable 60

Historic Auckland company Soar Printing won the ‘Medium business’ category at the prestigious Sustainable 60 Awards in Auckland last night, adding to a growing list of accolades for its dedication to corporate responsibility.

The family owned company was a finalist in three of the five categories –Environment, Strategy and governance, and Workplace – and won the award for companies with 21-100 employees.

The award came on the same day Soar Printing was notified by Landcare Research it has met the criteria to become the first New Zealand printer which can offer carboNZeroCertTM certified carbon-neutral printed products and services.

Soar Printing has been going for 90 years, set up in 1920 by Fred Soar on his return from World War I. He started from the basement of the Onehunga Orphan's Hall in Church St, Onehunga.

Soar's son Harry took over the business in the 1960s and had his own ambitions. When he finished work, he would have dinner with the family and then go into the Herald to work the night shift setting the headlines for the paper until just after midnight. He was saving to buy new offset printing technology from Germany.

Fred Soar, Managing Director and grand-son of the company founder, says the Sustainable 60 award reflect a five-year journey towards environmental best practise.

“There is huge pride in our team that our vision of being New Zealand’s most sustainable printer is coming to fruition. Sustainable values are fully entrenched in the company’s strategic focus and management structure.”

Read more

Children's Books Judges Announced

New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2012 Judges Announcement

 Independent education and publishing consultant, Gillian Candler will convene this year’s New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards judging panel.

The former secondary school teacher, editor and chief executive of state-owned education publishing company, Learning Media says she is looking forward to a long, enjoyable summer of reading great kiwi books.

“I’m a passionate believer that good books change lives. It is therefore an honour and a pleasure to convene this year’s New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards judging panel.
”I’ll be on the lookout for books that capture my imagination; books that entice and teach, books with characters that draw me in and leave me wanting more.”

Two other children’s literature experts join Ms Candler on the judging panel: school curriculum advisor, librarian and bookseller Annemarie Florian and award-winning writer and illustrator Bob Kerr.

Together they will read more than 130 books in the search for the best of this country’s children’s books - across all age groups - published in 2011.

They will be choosing finalists, and ultimately winners across five categories: picture book, non-fiction, junior fiction, young adult fiction and best first book.

Each Category Award winner receives $7,500. The winner of the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year Award takes home an additional $7,500. The winner of the Best First Book Award and the Children’s Choice Award receive prize money of $2,000 each.

New Zealand Post sponsors the book awards
New Zealand Post is proud to be principle sponsor of the New Zealand Book Awards and the Children’s Book Awards. New Zealand Post is committed to promoting and assisting literacy in our communities and supporting excellence in literature. Working closely with Booksellers NZ, New Zealand Post and other dedicated segments of the community actively encourage New Zealanders to read and enjoy books.

The New Zealand Post Book Awards 2012 are also funded by Creative New Zealand. The Awards are overseen by the New Zealand Post Book Awards Governance Group, administered by Booksellers NZ and supported by the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.

NZ Post Book Awards Judges Announced

From The Bookseller

Last Year’s Supreme Book Award Winner is This Year’s Top Judge

30 Nov 2011

Last year Chris Bourke took home the country’s top literary honour – the New Zealand Post Book of the Year Award – for his work Blue Smoke: the Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964. This year he heads up the judging panel for the same award.
A respected writer, reviewer, music historian and radio producer, Chris is well known as a former long-time producer for Radio New Zealand National’s Saturday Morning programme and as a staff writer and arts and books editor for print publications including The Listener.

Mr Bourke says he has just cleared several book shelves to make space for the entries in the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards, and his first impression is: “never mind the width, feel the quality.

“New Zealand’s book creation industry is in full flight, with debutantes taking on seasoned authors, the self-published challenging the extravagantly produced. The year has seen fiction and poetry collections from many of our leading writers, and non-fiction seems to have recovered its strength with a plethora of well-researched, elegantly written and designed books in the general and illustrated categories.

“Ahead lie six months of demanding but exhilarating reading, about New Zealand in all its diversity.”

Joining Chris Bourke on the judging panel are: multi-award winning poet, writer, critic and journalist David Eggleton, writer, publisher, book designer and typesetter Mary Egan, poet, reviewer, writer and anthologist Paula Green, writer and Maori and Pacific literature specialist Reina Whaitiri (Kai Tahu).

Judges are selected for the broad range of skills they bring to the judging process ensuring there is a diversity of writing styles and reading preferences. The judging panel as a whole represents the wealth of diversity and depth in New Zealand writing and publishing.

They will read more than 160 submitted books published in 2011 before selecting the finalists and, ultimately the winners, including the holder of the much-sought-after the New Zealand Post Book of the Year trophy.

There will be four judging categories this year comprising Poetry, Fiction, Illustrated Non-fiction and General Non-fiction. There will be 16 finalist books in total (three finalists each in the Fiction and Poetry categories and five each in the Illustrated Non-Fiction and General Non-Fiction categories).
The overall New Zealand Post Book of the Year Award winner receives $15,000. Winners of the four Category Awards will each receive $10,000, the Māori Language Award $10,000, Readers’ Choice Award $5,000, and the winners of the three New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards $2,500 each.

Your eReader and that mysterious Android

Want to convert your Kindle or your Nook?

Like most other tablets that aren't the iPad, Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet (and Barnes & Noble's Nook Color) is powered by Android, Google's open-source operating system. Because the programming code to Android is available for free on the Internet, companies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble can use it to make smartphones and tablets without needing to ask permission.

E-readers like the Nook Color and Kindle Fire only run Android "under the hood," so to speak. Everything on top was made by either Barnes & Noble or Amazon, and was designed to make it easy for you to read and buy books and videos.

Now, some clever people are producing ways of turning your eReader into a bells-and-whistles smart pad. The CyanogenMod team has taken the open-source Android programming code and made a custom version of Android, which can be used as an aftermarket upgrade for smartphones and tablets in the same way that PCs and Macs can be upgraded with Ubuntu. And people on the XDA-Developers message board are experimenting with ways to bring CyanogenMod to the Kindle Fire, while the Nook Color already has well-established ways to turn it into a full Android tablet.

But do you want to do it?  Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would want to surf the internet or receive and send email while reading a book.  And, there are all kinds of technical drawbacks, it seems.

If you convert your Nook Color, you won't be able to bring it into a Barnes and Noble store for free browsing and in-store specials ... unless you put Android on the microSD card, and keep your Nook Color's built-in software in the internal memory. (The Kindle Fire doesn't have this option.)

And you won't get any tech support from Kindle or B&N if your tinkering goes wrong.  It's just as if you opened up your computer and then regretted what you had done.

It's definitely something for techies.  Not, in my opinion, Real Readers.

But you can read more of Jared Spurbeck's technical meditations here