And Now There

New Edition of Pacific Islands Year Book

And Now There Is A Pacific Who's Who

By Judy Tudor

The Ninth Edition of the Pacific Islands Year Book, which s available now, is the biggest n its 31 years’ existence. We lope it may even be the best; ertainly it’s different. 1/fOSTLY it’s different because of tA the addition of the first South 'acific Who’s Who, compilation of ffiich has kept certain sections of 'acific Publication Pty. Ltd.’s Sydney stablishment in a state of hysteria or the last 12 months. It has had, Iso, the secondary result of greatly nriching the Australian Postmaster ieneral’s Department through the lousands of letters that have been xchanged.

The Pacific Islands Year Book and ie Who’s Who in the Pacific Islands ave been kept as two separate ntities but—for technical and conomic reasons—they have, in this rst instance, been bound together, mnibus-book fashion.

We expect that in the future the 'IYB will revert to being a book n its own and that revised versions f Who’s Who will be reissued, from ime to time, also bound separately.

The Year Book section, of 500 ages, covers as usual all of the dands in the South and North 'acific and also, somewhat more riefly, fringe areas such as Indo esia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Largely Rewritten

Because it has run through nine ditions over 31 years, and some parts f it were obsolete, a major task of was undertaken for this new dition.

Large sections of the book have een completely re-written and at ie same time opportunity was taken d rearrange the material in the eographical sections.

One result of all this is that our printing bill for the 9th edition is exactly twice as much as it was for the Bth edition; but it has, we think, made the material more valuable and much more easily found by the reader.

In the course of preparation of the material either I or other members of Pacific Publication’s staff have visited Tahiti, Tonga, American Samoa, Western Samoa, Fiji, Papua- New Guinea, West New Guinea, the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, New Hebrides and New Caledonia.

In all of these places we had the assistance and co-operation of the

administrations concerned and of individual officials.

In places which we were unable to visit we also had the assistance of administrations and officials and in this we are particularly grateful to the NZ Department of Island Terri tories; the Norfolk Is. Administration; the Government of the Gilbert & Ellice Is. Colony; the Government of Guam and of the United States Trust Territory of Micronesia; the Philippines Embassy in Canberra; the Australian Department of Territories, Canberra; and the several govern ments of what is now Malaysia.

Special efforts have been made in

this edition to cover the tourist in dustry—in the Pacific as a whole, in the general section at the front of the book; and towards the end of each individual geographical section.

This extra space reflects the growing interest in Pacific tourism.

As well as the sections dealing with individual islands and groups, a general section deals with missionary organisations, with a complete directory of all missionaries serving in the area; the history of the Pacific as a whole; a history of the Pacific War; the races of the Pacific; com munications—shipping, radio, air and port facilities; currency and popula tion figures.

The book contains some hundreds of maps—many of them new, re drawn or otherwise brought up to date.

Birth-Pangs of

A Who s Who We first thought of a Who’s Who about 1955 and the circulars were prepared for it; but lack of staff and the soon-encountered difficulties in volved in collecting biographies from an area of millions of square miles of ocean and islands, where people spoke half a dozen European languages and innumerable native ones, resulted in the idea being put into cold storage. It was resurrected again in 1959 and in the New Year of 1960 several thousand circulars went out.

The results, on the whole, were disappointing—mostly because Islands residents have a habit of putting circulars straight into the waste-paper basket. (Many when contacted personally later swore that they had never seen the original circulars.

However, we still have the original card-index to prove they were sent).

Other people, of course, felt that the somewhat detailed questionnaire was simply a gimmick to worm out of them their innermost domestic secrets and were suitably enraged— or otherwise un-co-operative.

Perhaps we should say here, for the benefit of the many people who have said to us that they “don’t like personal publicity of that sort”, that a Who’s Who biography is not designed for personal publicity. It is a record of names and dates and statistical facts without embroidery, designed purely for reference.

In 1960 the Who’s Who went back into cold storage again. It was then decided to bring it out and publish it only when we produced the next edition of the Pacific Islands Year

Book and the work of putting the original questionnaires into biography form and then into type began only at the end of 1962.

Because such a long time had elapsed since the questionnaires were originally filled in, proofs had to go back to their owners for additions and corrections—and that, in the Pacific, where people are continually being transferred, or returning to the original homelands or moving off somewhere else, created its own chain of difficulties.

There were, also, the reluctant dragons who still had to be chased.

Obviously another circular would not fill this bill—and so months of personal letter writing commenced.

This usually succeeded —but not always. By and large, people who live in the Pacific Islands are great extroverts. They’ll talk the leg off an iron pot and tell the most extra ordinary things about themselves — but many of those same extroverts, when they see just a few of those facts put into cold type, immediately run for cover.

So Exalted!

Additionally, I think that we had made a psychological blunder in the examples we had given on the original questionnaire. When I was designing this in 1955 I had whipped a mythical Andrew James Browne out of my imagination—a character who had lived a copy-book life, gone to the right schools, married the right woman, was an OBE, an MB and a FRCS, had an examplary war record, was an author of scientific books and had ended up as the Director of Medical Services in Fiji.

Later, when we really got down to cases, some of my less exalted customers had taken a quick look at the good Doctor and said (apparently): “Good God! If this is the sort of bloke who’s going to be in it, then they can count me out”.

For these reasons and also because of the area involved, the numerous political divisions, the mixture of people, the language difficulties and the very hazy idea that many of the indigenes had as to what a Who’s Who really was, we do not claim that this first edition of our Who’s Who is exhaustive.

But we do think that it is a very good cross-section of the people who live in the Pacific world today and who are contributing to their own communities in some way; plus others who live outside the Islands them selves but who also, through science,

politics, commerce or in any other way are also contributing to the con temporary Pacific scene.

This may not be the most erudite and comprehensive Who’s Who that was ever produced (give us time, in subsequent editions); but in some respects it is unique. Some of the biographies have come from individuals who, in their own fields, on world standards, can leave our fictitious friend Dr. Andrew James Browne, OBE, MB, FRCS, for dead; others are of men who are wholly illiterate and whose particulars had to be compiled by others—yet are just as important in their own com munities as Dr. Browne could ever have been in his.

In all, there are over 1,500 biographies covering 156 pages of small type. They have come from all over the Pacific and around the Pacific and include people of all races, indigenous and immigrant.

The task of compiling this first edition has been time-consuming, expensive, at times frustrating, occasionally hilarious and at all times interesting. It has called for patience —especially on the part of our own composing staff; a working knowledge of French and a smattering of several other languages; the services of hand writing experts and—at times—a crystal-ball.

But we hope that it is the beginning of something that will in this and future editions provide researchers with a basic knowledge of the people who are currently contributing to the still largely unknown world of the Pacific.

(See advertisement, page 27.)