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, 28 August 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 28 August 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 19
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 28 August 2022 there are 235,594,677 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 21 Aug 2022 Change since 31 Jul 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 235,594,677 0 81,609 1,082,587 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,162,163 17,182 68,549 306,624 6.01%
Articles with tags 4,528,377 6,189 22,337 125,383 1.92%
Articles with comments 247,101 392 1,583 8,410 0.10%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 28 August 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 19
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 28 August 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 19
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 21 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 28 August 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 20
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 21 Aug 2022 Change since 31 Jul 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,773,948 8 24,282 272,241 18.580%
Article 163,545,439 6 53,150 752,979 69.418%
Arts And Culture 3,819 16 47 449 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,450 0 0 27 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,605 47 68 609 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,340,288 0 4,060 88,327 11.180%
Display Advertisement 465 0 0 1 0.000%
Editorial 14,521 66 141 1,114 0.006%
Family Notices 1,943,788 94 553 8,985 0.825%
Humour 29,074 86 185 1,566 0.012%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,805 15 38 342 0.004%
Letters 12,446 22 58 436 0.005%
Literature 35,334 14 63 372 0.015%
News 11,377 23 65 959 0.005%
Obituaries 11,620 20 51 487 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,085 0 1 20 0.000%
Puzzles 43,044 149 224 3,112 0.018%
Reviews 2,063 4 15 82 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,478 0 1 673 0.001%
Sport And Games 16,173 138 174 1,633 0.007%
Weather 10,962 85 116 1,605 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 28 August 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 19
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 28 August 2022 there are 1,716 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,716
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 21 Aug 2022 Change since 31 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 525 0 1 10 30.29%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.46%
Queensland 105 0 0 1 6.06%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.89%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.64%
Victoria 409 1 1 2 23.60%
Western Australia 374 0 4 24 21.58%

Newspapers added since 21 Aug 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 31 Jul 2022

title_id title state total link
1807 The Groper (Perth, WA : 1930 - 1937) Western Australia 10897.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1807
1779 Australian Jewish Forum (Crows Nest, NSW. : 1941 - 1949) New South Wales 1901.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1779
1776 The Jewish Post (Melbourne, Vic. : 1949 - 1966) Victoria 3664.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1776

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 21 Aug 2022

  • No changes in this period.

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 31 Jul 2022

title_id title change in articles link
1079 The Blackwood Times (Greenbushes, WA : 1905 - 1955) 54,956 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
1790 The Harvey-Waroona Mail (Collie, WA : 1931 - 1946) 5,968 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 21 Aug 2022 Change since 31 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 0.362%
National 451,978 0 0 -766 0.192%
New South Wales 82,150,875 0 1,901 -748,798 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 41,701,572 0 3,664 1,438,677 17.701%
Western Australia 25,220,125 0 76,044 530,323 10.705%

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

  Current total Change since 21 Aug 2022 Change since 31 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 0.362%
National 452,159 0 0 0 0.192%
New South Wales 82,150,875 0 1,901 217,218 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 -1 10.425%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.728%
Victoria 41,701,572 3,664 3,664 372,314 17.701%
Western Australia 25,220,125 0 76,366 930,883 10.705%

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.