Wendy Harrex was the first fulltime employee of Otago University Press (then University of Otago Press) when she moved to Dunedin from Auckland in 1993. Her task was to take a part-time operation and build it into a proper publishing house. In a farewell speech celebrating her role in the University, Wendy spoke of her life in publishing at Otago and beyond:
I came because I was ready for a new challenge and had the required skills. I had been publishing books for 22 years, in the UK and in New Zealand. I had played a part in establishing Oxford University Press’s New Zealand list and operated my own company for 11 years.
At that time, the New Zealand market was becoming overcrowded. There were three university presses already operating. Local offices of multinationals were developing strong lists. There were good independent publishers in various parts of the country.
At an early meeting of the Press committee we agreed that rather than create yet another New Zealand publishing house our objective was to build the Press into a significant publisher in the Asia-Pacific region, a press that the University would be proud of.
The one constant I could depend on was change. The day I started in the industry, 42 years ago, I was shown around both the printing works and the publishing offices of OUP in Oxford. I met the linotype compositor and another person who was producing text on a varityper, a pre-digital typesetting machine. In the drawing office, photo-generated type was being used for illustrations – very exciting. Hot metal was on the way out, cold type was on the way in.
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Pictured above: Otago University Press publisher Wendy Harrex with Fiona Moffat (Senior Production Editor, left), Neil Brown (Archetype Allen & Unwin, centre) and new Otago Publisher Rachel Scott (right).
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