Charmian Smith talks to publisher Wendy Harrex and librarian Donald Kerr, who has curated an exhibition of its publications to celebrate its achievement.
From a part-time operation producing a trickle of small academic books to a publishing house with an international market, Otago University Press has come a long way in 50 years.
In the early days it was a modest affair, according to Dr Donald Kerr, special collections librarian at the university's information services building, who has curated "A record of achievement: the 50th birthday of the Otago University Press", an exhibition which runs until the end of March.
After the university council decided to establish a university press in 1957, then university librarian Peter Havard-Williams and John McIndoe, book enthusiast and publisher of the Dunedin printing and publishing firm John McIndoe Ltd, went to Melbourne to learn about book production and design.
The result was T.B.L. Webster's Greek Art and Literature 770-530BC: The beginnings of modern civilisation, (1959), the first University of Otago Press publication, published in association with Melbourne University Press.
Until 1993, John McIndoe and his firm's successive managing editors, Peter Stewart, Brian Turner and Barbara Larsen, now of Longacre Press, were to play an important role as printers and distributors, Dr Kerr says.
There were unexpected successes: Prof F.W.Craddock wrote Dental Writing: Notes on the anatomy and pathology of English composition for dentists (1962), aimed at dentists who might be required to write articles but felt their literary skills were inadequate for the task.
In practice, it covered all scientific writing and was adopted as a text at the Institute of Management and went into a second edition, Dr Kerr said.
Another textbook, Introduction to Ophthalmology (1976), by John Parr, was taken up by Oxford University Press and sold extensively throughout Europe and Africa.
One of the major publications during the early period was Erik Olssen's biography John A. Lee (1977), when Brian Turner was editor at McIndoe's.
The first university press editors were the university librarians.
Following Havard-Williams in 1960, W.J. McEldowney was both librarian and editor until his retirement in 1985, an amazing feat, Dr Kerr said.
Mr McEldowney was "forever penning submissions to council asking for the establishment of a full-time editor at the university press".
In some years the press only managed one publication, despite numerous submissions and typescripts.
In the mid 1980s, Dr Jocelyn Harris and then the late Dr Bill Sewell were involved as acting or assistant editors, and after Mr McEldowney's retirement.
Dr Sewell became editor for two years, followed by the late Dr Ian Lonie, then Dr Helen White. However, they were all part time.
It was not until 1993 that a full-time managing editor, Wendy Harrex, was appointed.
With a background of 12 years with Oxford University Press in Britain and New Zealand and then 11 years establishing and running New Women's Press, an independent publisher specialising in women's issues, she came with a vision of building a respected, professional publishing house with an international standing.
Having run a small business she was looking forward to having corporate services to draw on, but ironically she arrived just as the university was devolving, she said.
Realising the University Press could not rely on the overcrowded local market, she increased the output so overseas distributors would take it seriously as a publishing house.
Now the press publishes about 18 new books a year by a variety of respected overseas and local authors, as well as various journals, including the literary journal, Landfall, It now has distributors in Australia, North America, the UK and Europe and publishes about 18 new books a year by a variety of respected overseas and local authors.
It has also published journals, including the literary journal, Landfall, which has many overseas subscribers.
"It has meant we have been able to get more sales support for our academic publishing than other university presses have, because we get the additional overseas sales into the libraries in the US, for instance," she said.
A particularly successful title is The Politics of Indigeneity (2005), written by New Zealander Roger Maaka and Canadian Augie Fleras, which gives both Maori and Canadian Indian perspectives and is a text book in Canada.
Besides an international focus, the press also has a regional focus, especially in the fields of natural history, history and heritage, from local guides to southern localities such as The Catlins, Wanaka, Oamaru, and Queenstown, to Neville Peat and Brian Patrick's series Wild Dunedin (1995), Wild Fiordland, (1996) Wild Central (1999) and Wild Rivers (2001), three of which were shortlisted in the Montana Book Awards, and the multi-authored, magisterial The Natural History of Southern New Zealand (2004).
"Until we started doing Wild Dunedin, there hadn't been very much regional natural history published in New Zealand for the general market.
"The local guides can be seen as a continuation of that idea," she said.
She believes university presses also have a regional obligation, but it needs careful handling when you are also selling internationally.
"Luckily our UK distributor keeps on selling Wanaka and Queenstown guides," she says with a laugh.
In 1993, the press appointed HarperCollins its New Zealand distributor, then in 2006, the decision was made to distribute its books from Dunedin, with Archetype/Allen and Unwin selling the books into book stores.
To people used to head offices in Auckland, it may seem strange to distribute books from Dunedin, but when they analysed their New Zealand sales they found, with the strong regional natural history and heritage list, most of the sales were in the South Island, she said.
With a staff of four to six, Otago University Press receives 200-300 unsolicited manuscripts a year, ranging from "literary efforts" to academic proposals.
The latter have escalated since the introduction of performance based research funding in 2003.
"Sadly, we can't publish many of them and we are probably more sympathetic to them than most publishers."
Whether a proposal is accepted depends on advice about the quality of the submissions and the people contributing to it, the economics of the the proposal, and, importantly, whether or not it has an audience, she said.
While some books stand on their own merits, grants to help with publication are also sought from funding agencies such as Creative New Zealand or the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Sometimes university departments subsidise a publication by providing a small grant or making it possible for the author to finish the project.
"Those kinds of books are a huge amount of work for anyone who is involved in them. When they are published, they represent a massive team effort," she says.
Books do not necessarily have to be printed paper artefacts these days, with online publishing looming.
Already a couple of journals the press used to publish, The Women's Studies Journal and Computers in New Zealand Schools, are about to be published online and some academic books are also candidates, she says.
"It's all going to happen in one to three years. We simply have to sort out how people get paid, if they get paid, so there can be income for publishers and authors."
The idea does not upset her - it's just another change in the tools and technology for producing books for readers that dates back centuries.
"Before moving type was invented, there were still huge print runs that were copied out by hand by the monks and moving type just made it easier.
"And every change in technology ever since has made it easier and perhaps more sophisticated.
"I started in publishing with hot metal then started producing books on computers in the 1980s and I've always seen technology and any change to it as being a tool.
"One simply has to work out how best to apply it in order to produce a book to reach a reader, and it may be that we are moving rapidly to having books in forms other than print forms, but I think books as print artefacts will continue to exist too, and you can see that happening now.
"There are beautifully produced books with a high input of design and production values that are really craft objects although they are produced with high technology, and there are books that are obviously candidates for being delivered in a digital form in the future."
-The exhibition "A Record of Achievement: The 50th birthday of the Otago University Press" is in the de Beer Gallery in the University Central Library until March 27.
