Aotearoa/New Zealand Group
Some members of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Group met for lunch on the 15 March 2018 at the National Library café in Wellington. We are currently updating our Freelance Directory which we have not updated for a number of years. We intend to send this out with the media release about the National Indexing Day to all publishers in New Zealand. Our library is running well with another suggestion for a book purchase made at the meeting and all members present reported using the library in the last year. The group subscription of The Indexer is also proving of benefit to our members, most of whom would not be willing to take out an individual subscription.
Comments about the publishing industry in New Zealand included that there seem to be more academic books available, especially about New Zealand history, with some members having plenty of work from the university presses; however commercial publishers are finding it increasingly difficult to sell books when competing with online book depositories like Amazon; a big publisher in Auckland has moved their production to Australia; there seem to be quite a few indexers who are not a member of ANZSI working in New Zealand.
Everyone liked the café we met at and the general consensus was that a meeting earlier in the year was preferable to one at the end of the year when we are all busy. We propose to meet again next year around Feb/March.