Acknowledgements

Many people and institutions have been involved in the creation of this work, and the editors would like to thank in particular the following people for various help and personal encouragement: Elizabeth Caffin, Roderick Cave, Peter Foster, John Griffin, George Griffiths, Robert Holding, Marjorie Maslen, Shef Rogers, Rachel Salmond, Bob Stables; and especially Brian Opie, without whose initiative this book would almost certainly not have happened.

We would also like to thank the following institutions for their practical support of the project: Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand; Department of Information Studies, Curtin University of Technology; English Department, University of Otago; English Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

For specific contributions we also acknowledge the Evening Post, the Ministry of Education, National Archives, Mataaliki Press and the Alexander Turnbull Library for granting permission to reproduce illustrations; Moira Thompson for copy-editing and indexing, and Sheila Williams for collating the Bibliography. Our publisher, Fergus Barrowman, has provided very welcome encouragement and support towards the end of the project.

Funding grants from the Trustees of the National Library and the Lottery Grants Board provided financial support for a project which has grown in both scope and the number of people involved since it was initiated. The grants have not only covered the operating costs of the project, but enabled small payments to be made to the contributors and editors, and we were very pleased to receive this form of recognition.

But above all, the editors' warmest appreciation is due to the contributors for their great willingness to help with a project brought to completion in some 15 months. Like the editors, they too saw the great potential interest of the field of print culture, and were prepared to meet impossible deadlines in the cause of opening up the field and stimulating further research.

Throughout the project the editors have consulted at every point and acknowledge their joint responsibility for the work as a whole. For practical purposes the chapters were divided among the editors, with Penny Griffith editing Chapters 1, 5 and the Pacific Island languages section of Chapter 6 and providing overall project management; Ross Harvey edited Chapter 3; and Keith Maslen edited Chapters 2, 4 and Chapter 6 (all languages other than Pacific Island).

While we have all made every endeavour to be comprehensive and accurate, there will no doubt be errors and omissions, for which we seek your sympathetic understanding.