Bookman has no time for reading

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 9

Bookman has no time for reading

KEN COATES

A Look, says Normar Oberg, is kind of dear until you pick it up an* it comes to life. And has been picking tp books by the thousaid most of his life. There are 150,000 volumes on every conceivable subject crammed into shelves lining every room, nook and cranny is the three floors of his Manchester Street shfp. Norman travel hundreds of miles throiahout the country to buj them — from deceased Estates, auction sales, petpie leaving the country, Bom friends, acquaintances . . . from anyone. He looks oC himself as a link: “My greatest satisfaction comes from, putting the right irok into the right hands, he says. "And I life to discover books, preventing them from being destroyed, especially book» about the life, people and events of early New Zealand.” Norman Oberg makes no pretence cf being in business for love — “I am a dealer, a trader,” he says. “But 1 have no interest in making a lot of money. I treat this shop as an institution, a clearing house, and nowhere in Australasia is there the depth of stock which we have here.” Norman has many interests, although surprisingly he says he has no time to read the books he is so interested in. “I read titles,” he comments. ■'The rest is insight and past experience.” Years ago, he was a keen surfer and every summer was a beach patrolman at New Brighton. From his love of the sea grew his passion for books. “I reckoned it would be possible to sail around New Zealand on a surf ski because there is a threeknot drift right around the coast,” he recalls. “My idea was to live off the sea, and the land, but I also wanted to know all I could about the coast, its history and so on. "1 looked for historica’ material. and attendei Bethune’s auction sales n Wellington, the cleariig house for all New Zealaid collections. This set ne off.” He even gave up placing

Rugby so he cfuld buy books. But transportiig them from Wellington to Christchurch posed problems. One solution was to make arrangements with car owners traveling south on the inter-islatd ferry, and pack boots md back seats with books.

“I also used to pile boxes of books in the ferry’s vestibule, making sure to npve them to the other side of the ship before it be'thed at Lyttelton in the norning, so people could ge' to the gangway,” he remenbers. This worked well until one evening, Norman missed the boat, and had tf fly south to make his explanation, and $2 freight payment to the ship’s purser. Hi> ever-expanding collectim filled his own hou«, sheds, garage, and his mother’s house next do<r-

"The only rooms in wiich we did not have b<oks were the bathroom aid the kitchen,” he says. Norman could not resist mctions, and usually only ne was interested in buying large numbers of books.

“1 used to pick them up pretty cheap, and it was clear Christchurch needed a bookshop to handle them,”

Then he bought a collection of 6000 books in Invercargill, volumes which would have been dumped had he not made an offer.

Eight years ago, while talking to the former proprietor of the shop he now runs, he mentioned he would like a shop. “Well, you’ve got one,” came the reply. “I bought the place and brought in 100,000 books. That pretty well filled up the space upstairs and down.” Norman also has a penchant for bookcases. On the first floor in what he terms his New Zealand room, is a magnificent polished wood veneer American lock bookcase for which he paid $270, and which he estimates to be now worth $6OO. New Zealanders are only just beginning to become aware of the value of early books about their own country, according to Norman Oberg. “There is a new interest in genealogy and local history, and as well, publishers are putting out marvellous high-quality books that stimulate interest. “In only another 50 years, many will be collector’s items,” he claims. “Many are burned or destroyed and it is only by chance that I come upon them.”

Hung here and there in his shop are pictures. “I’m interested in art because you can’t handle books for long without becoming aware of the illustrations,” he said.

Once he picked up a Constable painting for £2OO and sold it for £4OO. “The

last Constable sold in England fetched $150,000,” he says. The way Norman sees it, a person never really owns a book; he is just the keeper, and this carries a responsibility. He looks on his responsibility as ensuring that useful, historical material is kept in the right hands. He talks of coming across runs of early magazines, and papers, and offering them to libraries. “I have offered rare, basic material at token prices to certain institutions, and have been ignored,” he says with some feeling. “Subsequently, the same library has been known to spend several times the amount of public money for the same items at auctions. “Libraries do receive gifts but no institution can hope to become the ghoulish heir-apparent of all deceased collectors.”

Norman Oberg maintains all libraries must buy books and naturally enough he sees the bookseller as being ready to help the librarian with his responsibilities.

“But this should be only on equal terms, as a responsible fellow citizen, not as the pedlar at the palace gates,” he adds. He gets satisfaction out of unearthing books for people. “An elderly man wants a book called, ‘The White Spider’ so he can present it to his daughter,

and a fisherman would be delighted if I can find him ‘Place Names of Banks Peninsula.’ ”

Upstairs in a room behind a narrow door marked private, the bookseller has a collection of books, letters, records and photographs of organisation long extinct, called the Clipper Ship Crusader Association.

Complete with banners, one of which depicts the ship Crusader which brought immigrants from Britain to New Zealand between 1870 and 1897, the material forms a comprehensive record of who made the voyages, what happened during them, and the nostalgic meetings of the association held for years afterwards. Norman Oberg considers

it should be held by an approved institution. He bought it from the estate of the late Miss Ruth Woodfield, daughter of Mark W. Woodfield, one of the association’s founders. Many books come from early Canterbury families, and should stay in Canterbury. Norman says he uses “instinct” in pricing a book. “I know what it is worth by putting myself in

the position of other people,” he says. A man of great enthusiasm, he has founded Hagley Press which has produced “Maori Patterns Painted and Carved,” by J. H. Menzies, in photolithographic facsimile. Only 125 of the original books were published in Christchurch in 1904 by Edgar Lovell-Smith and James Anthony. Norman Oberg gives the

impression he is not wholly at ease behind a shop counter. “My expertise is going round looking for material and making sure it is not lost,” he says. “The shop is really something of a collar around my neck.” He frequently burns the midnight oil among his books in Manchester Street — until two and three o’clock in the morning. “It is the only time 1

seem to be able 4o get to get things done aieumi here,” he says. At present Norman is working on a catalogue which represents more than 7000 books. Perhaps it is a commentary on our values that at present briskest trade at the shop is in posters — particularly “The Six Million Dollar Man.” advertised on television, and selling like hot cakes.