Changing times

"The Rodney Times, established in 1901, became the centre of an innovative company that also printed many of the nation's leading periodicals. [It] began as a weekly newspaper for what is now the Rodney district, based in Warkworth, 60 km north of Auckland ... traces its beginnings as a journal of record in a rural district still being carved from the bush ... Purchased by printer William Thomspn Rauparaha Cook in 1917, the Times and its associated enterprises remained in the hands of the Cook family until 2005. This ... tells how a widow with virtually no commercial experience took up the business in 1955 and developed the newspaper into a more successful enterprise. Subsequently her son ... introduced more technological changes that established a leading-edge printing business that also served other publishers ... All these changes take place in the context of a thriving country community, reflected ... by a collection of photographs of the Rodney district through the years"--Front cover flap.