GLAM Workbench
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Trove newspapers: data dashboard¶

Trove's collection of digitised newspapers is always changing – new articles and newspapers are being added by the NLA, while Trove users are busy correcting OCRd text and adding tags and comments. The search you run today might produce different results than the same query did a month ago, a year ago, or ten years ago. Researchers need to understand how these changes affect the queries they make, the results they find, and the arguments they construct. This dashboard helps researchers understand the context of their queries by presenting a snapshot of Trove's digitised newspapers, based on weekly data harvests. It shows Trove's current make up from a number of angles, as well as highlighting recent changes. It is updated every Sunday.

  • Total articles and user activity
  • Total articles by publication year
  • Total articles by publication year and state
  • Article categories
  • Newspaper titles
  • Total articles by publication state
  • Significant events
Last updated: Friday, 29 July 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 24 July 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 14
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 24 July 2022 there are 235,466,138 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 17 Jul 2022 Change since 26 Jun 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 235,466,138 0 203,764 954,048 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,078,073 18,111 72,107 222,534 5.98%
Articles with tags 4,498,591 6,546 24,805 95,597 1.91%
Articles with comments 245,096 542 2,159 6,405 0.10%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 10 July 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 14
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_year.csv

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles by year of publication. The distribution will change over time as digitisation priorities shift and more newspapers are added. This chart is useful in understanding how digitisation priorities and copyright restraints have shaped the total newspaper corpus.


Total articles by publication year and state¶

Latest data harvest 10 July 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 14
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_year_and_state.csv

This interactive chart helps you explore the distribution of articles by both publication year and state. Click on a state in the bar chart or legend to filter the results by year. Click anywhere in the background of the chart to reset. This enables you to compare digitisation patterns in different states and see how they contribute to the whole corpus.

Total articles added since 03 Jul 2022 by publication year and state

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles added since the previous harvest by year and place of publication. It's useful in seeing how search results from particular time periods and locations might be affected by current digitisation priorities.

Total articles added since 19 Apr 2022 by publication year and state

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles added since the first harvest by year and place of publication. It's useful in seeing how search results from particular time periods or locations might be affected by recent digitisation priorities.


Article categories¶

Latest data harvest 24 July 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 15
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 17 Jul 2022 Change since 26 Jun 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,731,560 14 60,217 229,853 18.572%
Article 163,466,286 5 130,619 673,826 69.422%
Arts And Culture 3,753 19 53 383 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,438 0 8 15 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,470 61 126 474 0.001%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,333,668 0 12,448 81,707 11.184%
Display Advertisement 465 0 0 1 0.000%
Editorial 14,313 108 248 906 0.006%
Family Notices 1,942,850 124 992 8,047 0.825%
Humour 28,754 60 429 1,246 0.012%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,755 7 87 292 0.004%
Letters 12,367 7 153 357 0.005%
Literature 35,267 12 101 305 0.015%
News 11,290 23 179 872 0.005%
Obituaries 11,543 26 148 410 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,083 1 1 18 0.000%
Puzzles 42,541 288 742 2,609 0.018%
Reviews 2,045 0 21 64 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,473 2 6 668 0.001%
Sport And Games 15,847 113 314 1,307 0.007%
Weather 10,695 135 278 1,338 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 17 July 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 14
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 17 July 2022 there are 1,710 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,710
Earliest publication date 05 March 1803
Latest publication date 19 March 2020

Newspapers by state of publication¶

This chart shows the place of publication of newspaper titles in Trove.

Changes in the number of newspapers by state of publication¶

  Current total Change since 10 Jul 2022 Change since 19 Jun 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 8 0 0 0 0.46%
International 13 0 0 0 0.75%
National 5 0 0 0 0.29%
New South Wales 524 0 2 9 30.41%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.46%
Queensland 105 0 0 1 6.09%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.94%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.67%
Victoria 408 0 0 1 23.68%
Western Australia 370 2 13 20 21.47%

Newspapers added since 10 Jul 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 19 Jun 2022

title_id title state total link
1786 Baileys Weekly (Perth, WA : 1933 - 1934) Western Australia 5602.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1786
1787 The Daily Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937) Western Australia 3496.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1787
1788 The Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937 - 1957) Western Australia 41908.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1788
1792 The Elswood Observer (Cottesloe, WA : 1931) Western Australia 269.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1792
1793 The Weekly Guardian (Subiaco, WA : 1933 - 1934) Western Australia 5138.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1793
1796 The W.A. Freeman's Journal (Irish-Australian Press) (Perth, WA : 1902) Western Australia 669.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1796
1798 W.A. Sporting Record and Dramatic Review (Perth, WA : 1932) Western Australia 206.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1798

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 10 Jul 2022

  • No changes in this period.

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 19 Jun 2022

title_id title change in articles link
876 Bundarra and Tingha Advocate (NSW : 1900 - 1929) 2,691 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title876
880 The Inverell Argus (NSW : 1885; 1894; 1899; 1902 - 1904; 1910; 1914; 1921-1922; 1924) 339 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title880
1483 The Elmore Standard (Vic. : 1882 - 1920 34,372 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1483
1658 The Preston Mail and District Advocate (Collie, WA : 1932 - 1954) 20,976 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1658
1775 The Berrigan Advocate (Cobram, NSW. : 1891 - 1954) 59,823 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1775
1789 The Farmers' Weekly (Perth, WA : 1947 - 1955) 36,363 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1789
1799 Coonabarabran Times (NSW : 1950-1954) 14,054 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1799

Total articles by publication state¶

Data about the number of articles by publication place (state) is available both from the main results API using the state facet, and from the newspapers API. As noted under Significant events, these totals don't always agree. I've included both below, so you can compare.

Number of articles by state of publication (via results API)¶

Number of articles by state of publication (via newspapers API)¶

Changes in the number of articles by state of publication (via results API)¶

  Current total Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 12 Jun 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.400%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.363%
National 451,978 0 0 -766 0.192%
New South Wales 82,123,689 339 115,252 -775,984 34.877%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 2,831 8,609 17.454%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -2,077 10.431%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.731%
Victoria 41,697,908 25,320 34,372 1,435,013 17.709%
Western Australia 25,122,436 73,888 208,275 432,634 10.669%

Changes in the number of articles by state of publication (via newspapers API)¶

  Current total Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 12 Jun 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.400%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.363%
National 451,978 0 0 0 0.192%
New South Wales 82,123,689 0 101,900 190,032 34.877%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.454%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -1 10.431%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.731%
Victoria 41,697,908 0 34,372 368,650 17.709%
Western Australia 25,122,436 4,165 177,591 833,194 10.669%

Significant events¶

While the changes documented here generally reflect the addition of new articles and newspapers, the total numbers can also be affected by system configuration and optimisation events, such as rebuilding the index. It's difficult to highlight these sorts of anomalies in the charts above, but where I notice them I'll add a note here.

31 May 2022 – reindex?¶

Between the harvests on 29 May and 5 June 2022 there was a dramatic change in the distribution of articles by state (using the state facet). The number of articles from NSW decreased by 939,065, and the number of articles from Victoria increased by 961,387. There were also some smaller changes affecting other states. There was a scheduled maintenance window on 31 May, which makes me think that these reflect changes in the underlying search index, rather than the actual number of articles. Further evidence for this is the fact that the number of articles per state calculated by using the newspapers API endpoint were out-of-sync with the article totals until the end of May. Since then, both sets of article totals have remained in sync. So, in short, the number of articles returned by the state facet between 19 April 2022 (when my harvests started) and 31 May 2022 can't be trusted.


Created by Tim Sherratt for the GLAM Workbench. Support this project by becoming a GitHub sponsor.