IMPORTS OF BOOKS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31344, 14 April 1967, Page 12

IMPORTS OF BOOKS

Liberal Policy Urged “If our priorities are right, books will be one of the last items to come under import restrictions,” said the ViceChancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips) when opening the forty-sixth annual conference of the Associated Booksellers of New Zealand in Christchurch. “For the first time in half a millenium the book trade was on the defensive against television, the motor-car, and lending libraries. Many readers had been wooed from books to newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. “But the trade may just be changing. We should hardly expect fewer books to be sold with our increased level of education.”

In 1965, 28,000 titles had been printed in the United States, and New Zealand could see its future reflected in this booming industry. “It expresses confidence in the industry when some of the commercial giants have entered the field,” he added. “American book sales have trebled in the last 12 years. There is something repulsive, even potentially dangerous, in all this. It is surely not too much to hope that, no matter how books are made, they will continue to be sold in humane surroundings.” It would be possible to lead a happy life without reading a book, but hardly a full and profitable one. Books were still the most powerful link with other ages, and one of the most powerful links with other places. ■’