Another 20,000 pages of The Ellesmere Guardian went online on April 15th, covering the period 1906 to 1945.  A celebration was held at Leeston Library in early May.

This a real partnership project, with WET coordinating financial contributions from Lincoln University Library, Selwyn District Libraries, Christchurch City Libraries, Ellesmere Historical Society and from WET.  The National Library matched this funding.  Thanks are also due to Fairfax Media who waived copyright restrictions to allow the material to be made publicly available.

In the month following the launch there were 5,613 unique visitors to the Ellesmere Guardian pages, compared with 1,123 unique visitors in the month of March – about a five fold increase in visitor numbers.  It will be interesting to check on the popularity of the site over the next few months.