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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, 14 August 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 14 August 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 17
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 14 August 2022 there are 235,590,140 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 07 Aug 2022 Change since 17 Jul 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 235,590,140 44,702 124,002 1,078,050 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,127,187 16,912 67,225 271,648 6.00%
Articles with tags 4,516,821 4,552 24,776 113,827 1.92%
Articles with comments 246,326 473 1,772 7,635 0.10%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 14 August 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 17
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 14 August 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 17
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 07 Aug 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 14 August 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 18
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 07 Aug 2022 Change since 17 Jul 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,772,825 13,201 41,279 271,118 18.580%
Article 163,542,037 29,393 75,756 749,577 69.418%
Arts And Culture 3,802 0 68 432 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,450 0 12 27 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,553 1 144 557 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,340,250 2,041 6,582 88,289 11.181%
Display Advertisement 465 0 0 1 0.000%
Editorial 14,451 5 246 1,044 0.006%
Family Notices 1,943,602 176 876 8,799 0.825%
Humour 28,977 14 283 1,469 0.012%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,788 12 40 325 0.004%
Letters 12,406 3 46 396 0.005%
Literature 35,294 6 39 332 0.015%
News 11,344 13 77 926 0.005%
Obituaries 11,593 10 76 460 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,085 0 3 20 0.000%
Puzzles 42,894 3 641 2,962 0.018%
Reviews 2,052 3 7 71 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,478 0 7 673 0.001%
Sport And Games 16,028 2 294 1,488 0.007%
Weather 10,876 1 316 1,519 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

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

As of 14 August 2022 there are 1,715 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,715
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 07 Aug 2022 Change since 10 Jul 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 30.31%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.46%
Queensland 105 0 0 1 6.07%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.91%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.65%
Victoria 408 0 0 1 23.60%
Western Australia 373 0 5 23 21.57%

Newspapers added since 07 Aug 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 10 Jul 2022

title_id title state total link
1791 The Western Suburban News (Subiaco, WA : 1913) Western Australia 322.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1791
1805 The Maylands & Bayswater Chronicle (WA : 1905) Western Australia 145.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1805
1806 Common Wealth (Perth, WA : 1933) Western Australia 48.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1806

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 07 Aug 2022

title_id title change in articles link
1079 The Blackwood Times (Greenbushes, WA : 1905 - 1955) 28,747 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1079
1091 The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1898 - 1929) 3,045 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1091
1788 The Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937 - 1957) 985 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1788

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 10 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) 60,979 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1079
1091 The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1898 - 1929) 3,045 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1091
1788 The Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937 - 1957) 985 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1788
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) 17,179 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 07 Aug 2022 Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.399%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.363%
National 451,978 0 0 -766 0.192%
New South Wales 82,150,002 1,028 26,652 -749,671 34.870%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.445%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -2,077 10.425%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.728%
Victoria 41,697,908 0 25,320 1,435,013 17.699%
Western Australia 25,220,125 43,674 171,577 530,323 10.705%

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

  Current total Change since 07 Aug 2022 Change since 03 Jul 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.399%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.363%
National 452,159 0 0 0 0.192%
New South Wales 82,148,974 0 25,285 215,317 34.869%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.445%
South Australia 24,560,778 0 0 -1 10.425%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.728%
Victoria 41,697,908 0 0 368,650 17.699%
Western Australia 25,209,228 32,777 90,957 919,986 10.700%

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.