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: Sunday, 31 July 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 31 July 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 15
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 31 July 2022 there are 235,513,068 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 24 Jul 2022 Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 235,513,068 46,930 146,477 1,000,978 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,093,614 15,541 70,106 238,075 5.98%
Articles with tags 4,506,040 7,449 26,475 103,046 1.91%
Articles with comments 245,518 422 2,126 6,827 0.10%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 31 July 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 15
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 31 July 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 15
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 10 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 31 July 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 16
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 24 Jul 2022 Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,749,666 18,106 43,489 247,959 18.576%
Article 163,492,289 26,003 93,804 699,829 69.420%
Arts And Culture 3,772 19 62 402 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,450 12 13 27 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,537 67 171 541 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,336,228 2,560 8,734 84,267 11.182%
Display Advertisement 465 0 0 1 0.000%
Editorial 14,380 67 290 973 0.006%
Family Notices 1,943,235 385 966 8,432 0.825%
Humour 28,889 135 499 1,381 0.012%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,767 12 79 304 0.004%
Letters 12,388 21 119 378 0.005%
Literature 35,271 4 67 309 0.015%
News 11,312 22 137 894 0.005%
Obituaries 11,569 26 157 436 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,084 1 2 19 0.000%
Puzzles 42,820 279 800 2,888 0.018%
Reviews 2,048 3 12 67 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,477 4 10 672 0.001%
Sport And Games 15,999 152 369 1,459 0.007%
Weather 10,846 151 362 1,489 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 31 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_newspaper.csv

As of 31 July 2022 there are 1,711 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,711
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 17 Jul 2022 Change since 26 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 0 9 30.39%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.46%
Queensland 105 0 0 1 6.09%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.93%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.67%
Victoria 408 0 0 1 23.67%
Western Australia 370 0 7 20 21.46%

Newspapers added since 17 Jul 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 26 Jun 2022

title_id title state total link
1787 The Daily Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937) Western Australia 3496.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1787

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 17 Jul 2022

title_id title change in articles link
192 Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1965) 25,285 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title192
1079 The Blackwood Times (Greenbushes, WA : 1905 - 1955) 6,023 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1079
1789 The Farmers' Weekly (Perth, WA : 1947 - 1955) 4,089 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1789
1790 The Harvey-Waroona Mail (Collie, WA : 1931 - 1946) 11,211 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1790

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 26 Jun 2022

title_id title change in articles link
192 Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1965) 25,285 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title192
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
1079 The Blackwood Times (Greenbushes, WA : 1905 - 1955) 6,023 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1079
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) 27,040 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1775
1785 Baileys Sporting and Dramatic Weekly (Perth, WA : 1931 - 1933) 5,597 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1785
1789 The Farmers' Weekly (Perth, WA : 1947 - 1955) 27,379 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1789
1790 The Harvey-Waroona Mail (Collie, WA : 1931 - 1946) 43,382 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1790

Total articles by publication state¶

Data about the number of articles by publication place (state) is available both from the main result API using the state facet, and from the newspaper 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 result API)¶

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

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

  Current total Change since 10 Jul 2022 Change since 19 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 82,148,974 25,285 102,192 -750,699 34.881%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.451%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -2,077 10.429%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.730%
Victoria 41,697,908 0 34,372 1,435,013 17.705%
Western Australia 25,144,081 21,645 184,335 454,279 10.676%

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

  Current total Change since 10 Jul 2022 Change since 19 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 452,159 0 0 0 0.192%
New South Wales 82,148,974 25,285 55,355 215,317 34.881%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.451%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -1 10.429%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.730%
Victoria 41,697,908 0 34,372 368,650 17.705%
Western Australia 25,143,759 21,323 160,645 854,517 10.676%

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 newspaper 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.