NZ National Museum Te Papa is closing its book publishing business "for up to 5 years"

As another manifestation of the woes being experienced by the book publishing industry in NZ comes this announcement.  Te Papa Press employs 4 people and last year published 12 titles; although its fare has fairly limited appeal beyond academics, it is nevertheless highly regarded.

But as we well know, excellence does not necessarily mean sales success and with anyone under 35 now fully occupied with smart phones and tablet computers, books get harder to sell and the amount of retail shelf space devoted to them is steadily shrinking.