International Trade Library no.6 Better By Design Media Library

Photo from Better By Design website.

Well it may be stretching things a bit to call this an international trade library! However it does hold and make available resources which a TraLIS should know about. Better By Design is a New Zealand organisation set up to assist the design needs of businesses including exporting companies. Brett Hewlett (pictured) from Comvita a company which focuses on bee-derived health products and which exports to China, Hong Kong and Australia, is featured in one of the videos which can be watched at: http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/news-and-resources/media-library

Bing Harris & Co - trade history

Sir Jack Harris Bt died on August 29, 2009 aged 103. Sir Jack made a huge impact as a pioneering manufacturer and civic leader in New Zealand, and was chief executive of importing/exporting company Bing Harris and Co.
In 2007 he wrote Memoirs of a century, in which he remembered events and people across his life. There is no pretence that this is a scholarly work and Sir Jack is the source of all that is included. It is indexed and this does help the reader to refind references to companies and places.
Bing Harris and Co. was established in Dunedin in the mid-1850s and Wolf Harris, Sir Jack’s grandfather began by importing goods from Melbourne. The discovery of gold in Central Otago meant that Dunedin developed quickly and that there was a market that needed the goods, largely clothing, that Bing Harris offered.
Before WW II it became clear to Sir Jack that the company should become a manufacturer of clothing and this proved to be a profitable move in the wartime period. After the war New Zealand economic policy focused on self-sufficiency – everything should be produced in NZ. To do this raw materials had to be imported. Of course the United Kingdom continued to be an important source, but it is suggested that Bing Harris were one of the first postwar importers from Japan, with contacts also being made in North America, India and Hong Kong.
Bing Harris had factories in Wanganui, New Plymouth, Christchurch, Auckland, Levin and Palmerston North. It also diversified into motor accessories .
Shortly after the war Sir Jack went to Japan to establish business contacts and his deputy George Milne followed. Arising out of that visit the trade in forest logs was opened up and Bing Harris obtained the agency for the logs from the Nissho company.
There is much anecdotal writing included which is to be expected in a volume of memoirs: comments on political figures both here and in the UK, the Harris’s house Te Rama at Waikanae and a piece written by Sir Jack’s wife, Patricia.
For the trade historian, Memoirs is a taster, and a full biography of Sir Jack, or a company history of Bing Harris will I am sure fill in many gaps.
Sir Jack Harris Bt: memoirs of a century. Steele Roberts, 2007. ISBN 978-1-877448-04-1

The Trade Librarian and Trade History

Photo: Chinese garden - Dunedin 27 August 2009 / Graeme Siddle.

Last month I was on holiday and visited Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. We visited the new Chinese Garden which was opened in 2008 located near the Early Settlers' Museum and Railway Station. As can be seen from the photo it looks new, the rocks and structures have not developed any coverings such as moss or lichens and the plantings are all young. This photo shows new growth on the willows.

There is a wall near the entrance listing supporters and benefactors - one of these has been the Sew Hoy Family - well-known in Dunedin's business circles. The Sew Hoys were a long established Dunedin Chinese family, and Hugh Sew Hoy formed a company Sew Hoy and Sons in 1958 for the manuafacture of clothing. Between then and its closure in 1989 the company esstablished five factories in the Otago region and one in Christchurch. The company employed up to 600 staff and won an export award in 1971 and formed substantial overseas holdings chiefly in clothing.

Because the company relied heavily on New Zealand's protective tariffs, when these were reduced from 1988 this impacted badly on the company and Sew Hoy and Sons in New Zealand was placed in receivership in December 1989.

For 30 years the Sew Hoy company had been a major employer in Otago. Hugh Sew Hoy did not want to shift the company's Head Office and manufacturing elsewhere. He also had great pride in the accomplishments of his grandafather Choie Sew Hoy.

Information source:

http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=5S10 retrieved August 18^th 2009.

Unlike the Sew Hoy story, there is a great deal of unwritten trade history in New Zealand and maybe in other countries as well. Is it the role of the trade library and information professional to collect and preserve it? What are we doing about this in our own companies and organisations?

Guanxi in the library world

Rosalie Blake - recently retired Library Manager of the Horowhenua Library Trust. Photo used with permission.

Rosalie Blake was the guest speaker at the Ikaroa Region of LIANZA's AGM held at the Palmerston North City Library on 12 August, 2009. Her talk entitled Blake's Blasphemies included some of her axioms for managing libraries, but she also covered some of her achievements most notably the development of the Koha and Kete open source software programs.

Speaking about the early genesis and the development decisions, Rosalie noted that her library staff did not like many of the ILSs on offer, and couldn't afford the ones they did like. She therefore talked with a family member who was working in IT who said that he thought 'something' could be developed quite easily along the lines of what Horowhenua wanted.

This posed a problem for Rosalie with possible accusations of nepotism and best use of money. She consulted with the Chair of the Library Trust who happened to be Chinese - he responded by using the traditional Chinese apporach of 'guanxi'. Understanding guanxi is critical to the international trade professional working in China. 'Deep guanxi is a strong feeling of interpersonal relationship, loyalty and trust, and moral obligation to maintain the relationship from both parties'. From "Navigating China for New Zealand businesses" p.43

He said: 'Do you trust x and believe that they will deliver on their promises?' From that agreement based on guanxi, the development of Koha progressed until it has become a vital part of the library world. It is used worldwide including all the Parliamentary Libraries in Africa. However Rosalie did note that uptake in Australia and New Zealand has not been as enthusiastic. The New Zealand School of Export Library and Information Service uses it and Rosalie was part of the consultation process we undertook.

Underpants and other products

This is the cover of Joe Bennett's recent book "Where underpants come from" in which he traces a pair of underpants from the retailer back to the manufacturer and to the sources of the materials used. In this case from a New Zealand retailer to a Chinese manufacturer and to sources in Thailand and Xinjiang, China's western-most province. It was a fascinating read - does anyone know of any other similar books? It would be good to know about them for trade and business libraries and information services.

As a side benefit this book described the situation of the Uighur people, the indigenous majority of Xinjiang. As it happened I had just finished Joe Bennett's book before the July 5 riots in Urumqi.

Got the numbers...

Photo: Marie-Louise Siddle

Reflections at Chaffers Bay, Wellington Harbour

July 25, 2009

It goes without saying that statistics are an invaluable source for the information professional. They are also the most frustrating area to deal with, which is probably why many people working in international trade are happy to take any sets of figures they can find. Three points illustrate some of the difficulties faced.
1. I was checking all my links yesterday on the New Zealand School of Export website and discovered that the freely available Trade and Banking statistics that I had had for Russia no longer were available. In fact the Russian government doesn’t appear to provide any free statistical service. There are statistics available in other compilations and I will be using those.
2. Statistics New Zealand has just given its website a makeover and as a result has caused mayhem among New Zealand libraries with links to Statistics New Zealand pages. Even the Library at Statistics New Zealand has over 900 links to fix! Our website had only one – a measure perhaps of the fact that we haven’t come to terms with all the information that is offered there.
3. Today I had an information enquiry about exports from the Manawatu-Wanganui region. Locally we don’t have a port from which goods are exported so that has proved difficult. A report from BERL economics entitled: Economic Profile and Projections for the wider Manawatu Region:

http://www.visionmanawatu.org.nz/downloads/BERL%20projections%20to%202026.pdf

has digested a lot of statistics and provides some help. Statistics New Zealand may have some way of tracking these figures but neither Table Builder or Infoshare on the revamped website have helped.

All in a day for the information trade professional I guess!

LIBRARY WEEK 2009

A young information trade professional! But it did get your attention... LIBRARY WEEK 2009 runs from 10th to the 16th August in New Zealand.
The theme this year is ESCAPE, EXPLORE, DISCOVER Ki te whai ao, ki te ao marama. ESCAPE from your office - EXPLORE this blog and some of the international trade libraries and information services that have been featured. and DISCOVER all the information that is available through these services for the trade professional.

If you are interested in Library Week and what happens go to:
www.libraryweek.org.nz But here are some ideas youcould try in your organisation:

1. Run a quiz based on your catalogue (with prizes of course - fair trade products for example)
2. Suggest some useful YouTube links for your colleagues
3. Get your colleagues to nominate their best international trade book giving 5 reasons. Make these into a short bibliography for everyone in the export section.

Enjoy Library Week 2009!