Dr Sydney Shep

Senior Lecturer,
School of Information Management

Introduction

Sydney teaches in a range of areas from social science research methods, to resources for New Zealand studies, to topics in print culture, book history, media studies, and print communication. Cross-appointed with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, she integrates the unique letterpress teaching laboratory of Wai-te-ata Press into much of her teaching. She is a trained letterpress printer and fine design bookbinder, and is interested in the conservation of works on paper as well as in the digital environment.

In 2009 Sydney was awarded her second Marsden grant. The title of her research programme is "The Printers' Web: Typographical Journals and Global Communication Networks in the Nineteenth Century", and the award is valued at $564,000 over three years. Her previous Marsden, "The Problem with Paper: NZ Colonial Paper and Papermaking", included journal articles, conference papers, and forensic analysis of papers, including those made of NZ flax (Phormium tenax). Additional work arising from that has been an British Academy-funded project on NZ-Scottish migration, identity and print culture, looking at the Kinleith papermill in Tokoroa.

Qualifications

BA(Hons), MA, Toronto; MA, Baltimore; PhD, Wellington

Administrative Responsibilities

• Member of the SIM Human Ethics Committee

Current Research

Sydney research focus is the interdisciplinary domain of book history and print culture and includes projects ranging from a history of New Zealand paper and papermaking to Wellington's print history to the nineteenth-century transnational typographical press system, as well as biscuit typography, graffiti, emoticons, and reading in the Boer War. In 2010 she established a Print Culture eResearch Hub to facilitate several collaborative digital humanities projects: The Printers' Web, the New Zealand Reading Experience Database, and the Digital Colenso, a prosopographical collaboratorium. Cross-appointed with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sydney integrates the unique letterpress teaching laboratory of Wai-te-ata Press into much of her teaching and this practical experience informs her historical research.

Selected Publications

Shep, S. (2010). Imagining post-national book history. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 104(20), 253-268.

Shep, S. (2010). The sociology of McKenzie’s Treaty. In D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography & the sociology of texts. Edinburgh: Scottish Centre for the Book.

Shep, S. (2008). Books without borders: The transnational turn in book history. In Robert Fraser & Mary Hammond (Eds.), Books without borders: The cross-national dimension in print culture. Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan

Shep, S. (2007). The centennial racket: JC Beaglehole, nationalism and the 1940 New Zealand centennial publications. In Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash & Ian Willison (Eds.), Literary cultures and the material book. London, The British Library

Gorman, G. & Shep, S. (2006). Preservation management for libraries, archives and museums. London, Facet Publishing.

The Print History Project: Wellington's Book Trade 1840-2000 (see http://www.nzetc.org/projects/php) (2002).

"Kiwi Consumable Culture," in Biscuits. Cookies, Crackers & Gingernuts. (Wellington: Mediawork Publications, 2002), 4. (Catalogue for photographic exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand 9 August - 3 November 2002).

"Mapping the Migration of Paper: Historical Geography & New Zealand Print Culture," in The Moving Market, ed. Peter Isaac & Barry Mackay. (Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2001), 179-192.

"The Treaty Papers." in Papers of the 24th International Congress of Paper Historians, Porto. Portugal, 11-20 September 1998, vol 12 (2001), 199-208.

"Book History and the Practice of Material Culture: The Example of Wai-te-ata Press," Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, Special double issue in memory of Professor D.F. McKenzie Printers and Readers, vol. 25, no.1 & 2 (2001), 3-7.

"Maids of Tartarus: Female Labour in the New Zealand Paper Industry," in Papers of the 25th International Congress of Paper Historians, Dortmund, Germany, 8-14 September 2000, vol 13 (2001), 93-101.

Creative Achievements (publication design)

Gregory O'Brien & IIML, Real Life Bird Song. Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 2003.

Gregory O'Brien & IIML, AQP: A Question of Poetry. Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 2003.

Stephanie de Montalk & IIML, Waveforms. Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 2002.

Gregory O'Brien & IIML, The Approach. Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 2002.

Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Maori Battalion. A Poetic Sequence. Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 2001.

Wai-te-ata Press
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