GLAM Workbench
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National Archives of Australia Digitisation Dashboard¶

The National Archives of Australia's online database, RecordSearch, includes a list of recently digitised files, but this list only includes files digitised in the last month, so it's not possible to examine long-term changes. Since March 2021, I've captured weekly harvests of this list and saved them to a GitHub repository. This dashboard aggregates the weekly harvests to display digitisation progress in the last week, the current year, and since harvests began in 2021.

A dataset containing annual compilations of the weekly harvests is available from Zenodo.

Changes to RecordSearch in May 2025 have blocked the weekly harvests and made it impossible to update this dashboard. The last data harvest was on 11 May 2025.

There have been 229 weekly harvests since March 2021. The most recent harvest was on 13 September 2026.

Files digitised last week (6 Sep 2026 – 13 Sep 2026)¶

958 files were digitised last week. Here are the number of files digitised per day.

title item_id series control_symbol date_range date_digitised series_title
0 DE BARTOLO Maria - Nationality: Italian - Arri... 6568444 B78 ITALIAN/DE BARTOLO MARIA 1939 – 1972 2026-09-12
1 SALCE Giuseppe - Nationality: Italian - Arrive... 6438431 B78 ITALIAN/SALCE GIUSEPPE 1939 – 1972 2026-09-12
2 BR 816 - Handbook for 2-inch rocket Mark II 6037509 MP151/1 571/202/1772 1943 – 1944 2026-09-12
3 FINK Elisabeth [formerly Anwand] - Nationality... 4111329 B78 1955/FINK E 1949 – 1955 2026-09-12
4 Italian PW Work Pay [Employment of POW in Rura... 403713 MP742/1 255/21/2 1944 – 1945 2026-09-12
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
953 Gianni Raisa [Italian - Arrived Melbourne per ... 8762677 SP908/1 ITALIAN/RAISA GIANNI 1961 – 1968 2026-09-07
954 Frank D'Esposito [Application for Naturalisati... 844017 ST1233/1 N5352 1927 – 1950 2026-09-07
955 Capecchi, Rose [born in 1943 - Immigration NSW... 30572460 C321 N1973/014393 1973 – 1973 2026-09-07
956 SAINTY Walter F 203765062 C139 NMX109207-02 2000 – 2000 2026-09-07
957 Wrensted, Arthur - service number Q191454 [DVA... 203171816 BP1009/1 QMX136187-01 1940 – 1987 2026-09-07

958 rows × 7 columns

The files came from 185 different series. Here are the 25 series which contain the most files digitised last week.

series series_title total
A8746 271
B78 78
D5582 70
A11902 49
C612 43
P1556 39
A11938 26
D4881 24
B44 14
SP908/1 14
B13 10
C321 8
A2478 8
MP150/1 8
B73 7
MP80/2 6
MP151/1 6
SP2/1 6
B741 5
K271 5
K1395 5
SP155/1 5
SP1008/1 5
A705 4
BP709/1 4
Explore files digitised last week using Datasette

Files digitised this year (2026)¶

37,345 files have been digitised this year. Here are the number of files digitised per month.

The files came from 1,056 different series. Here are the 25 series which contain the most files digitised so far this year.

series series_title total
A907 Ships' Passenger Lists - Inwards (Form P2) 16,887
MT1139/1 First World War munition workers dossiers 2,125
A8746 Photographic colour negatives, chronological series with 'KN' or 'RKN' prefix and a single number suffix 1,133
M5197 Colour photographic (kodachrome) slides illustrating the life and career of Sir Keith Charles Owen Shann CBE 1,124
D4878 Alien registration documents, alphabetical series 1,020
MP551/1 Ships' drawings and specifications, together with those for two floating docks 775
D4881 Alien registration cards, alphabetical series 678
A705 Correspondence files, multiple number (Melbourne) series (Primary numbers 1-323) 622
B78 Alien registration documents 586
A11836 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Sturgis departing Venice 17 April 1948 489
A11841 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Svalbard departing Bremerhaven 21 May 1948 473
D1989 Application forms, medical examination documents and related papers of British and Foreign Immigrants (including Ex Service) in receipt of free and assisted passages, chronological order of ship arrival. 399
SP908/1 Application for Registration of Aliens (other than Asiatics) 397
A11753 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Fairsea departing Naples 21 September 1949 396
A11944 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Black departing Bremerhaven 20 March 1948 391
B3114 Photograph albums 385
A11938 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stewart departing Bremerhaven 13 January 1948 345
A11902 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Wooster Victory departing Genoa 6 August 1948 305
A8746 271
P1556 Files containing Antarctic Station Reports with Station Log Books interspersed, chronological series 266
A1337 Applications for Registration of a Design 211
A2478 Non-British European migrant selection documents 193
A11519 Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Volendam departing Rotterdam 11 December 1948 191
B44 Immigration case files, annual single number series with 'V' [Victoria] prefix 145
A8763 Photographic colour negatives, single number with 'KN' [Colour Negatives] prefix 133

Files digitised since 4 February 2021¶

1,439,975 files have been digitised since 4 February 2021. Here are the number of files digitised per year.

The files came from 3,052 different series. Here are the 25 series which contain the most files digitised since 4 February 2021.

series series_title total
B883 Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947 313,110
B884 Citizen Military Forces Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947 284,175
A9301 RAAF Personnel files of Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and other ranks, 1921-1948 189,820
A2571 Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 162,204
A2572 Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 101,983
A9300 RAAF Officers Personnel files, 1921-1948 33,908
A6135 Photographic colour transparencies positives, daily single number series with 'K' [Colour Transparencies] prefix 19,624
A13150 Specifications, examiners reports and correspondence relating to the Registration of Victorian Patents - Second system 17,472
A907 Ships' Passenger Lists - Inwards (Form P2) 16,939
A714 Books of duplicate certificates of naturalization A(1)[Individual person] series 13,603
D3481 Photographs (black and white, colour) of buildings, installations, sites, etc 13,389
D874 Still photograph outdoor and studio negatives, annual single number series with N prefix (and progressive alpha infix A-K from 1948-1957) 12,329
A1500 Photographic colour transparencies [positives], single number series with 'K' [Colour] prefix 11,868
A705 Correspondence files, multiple number (Melbourne) series (Primary numbers 1-323) 10,654
A7109 "Dead" card index of Registered Aliens 10,618
A14435 Stanley Fowler photographs showing the Australian fishing industry and coastline, numerical series with ‘LA’prefix 10,512
E607 Negative film of photographs taken of every lot of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy, two number series 9,510
J853 Architectural plans, annual single number series with alpha (denoting Papua New Guinea and discipline) prefix and/or alpha/numeric (denoting size and amendment) suffix 8,962
A13149 Applications for Registration of Victorian Patents - Second system 8,852
MT1486/1 Applications to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force 7,999
A1 Correspondence files, annual single number series [Main correspondence files series of the agency] 7,621
AP476/1 Petitions for South Australian Colonial patents with specifications. 6,484
D1423 Original plans (negatives), single number series with alpha prefix denoting discipline 4,722
K1145 Certificates of Exemption from Dictation Test, annual certificate number order 4,550
D1051 Original drawings, plans and prints of National Estate properties 4,484

Created by Tim Sherratt for the GLAM Workbench.