Christchurch City Librarians are a resourceful bunch as this story from Sue Colyer illustrates.
Ellesmere Guardian
Recently issues of the Ellesmere Guardian from 3 January 1891 – 29 December 1906 were added to Papers Past, the National Library’s digital archive of historical NZ newspapers, but the story of how the paper came to be able to be digitised begins in the early 1990’s when Anne Anderson and I accompanied, because it was school holidays, by our respective children, set out for the small mid-Canterbury township of Leeston. The search and rescue mission we had chosen to accept was to retrieve early bound volumes of the local newspaper which we wanted to preserve as part of early Canterbury history.
The Ellesmere Guardian began in 1880 at that time published in Southbridge, and continued until 1983 when it merged with the Malvern Record to form the Central Canterbury News.
We thought the expedition would be relatively straightforward but when we arrived we discovered they were stored in the attic of the old Guardian building which entailed a dusty climb up rickety stairs and ladders. Just as well we had brought the children who entered into the spirit of the rescue with enthusiasm and heedless of health and safety. The rescue took longer than anticipated with much gingerly traipsing up and down again with the heavy leather bound volumes. These were destined to be microfilmed and served family and scholarly researchers that format for some years. Now, thanks to the efforts of Christchurch City Libraries, Lincoln Unviersity Library and the Waihora Ellesmere Trust they can be read and searched by anyone from anywhere in the world on Papers Past.
The children were rewarded with a pie from the famous Hillyers pie shop in Lincoln on the way home.
