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, 11 September 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 11 September 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 21
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 11 September 2022 there are 235,773,443 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 04 Sep 2022 Change since 14 Aug 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 235,773,443 92,826 183,303 1,261,353 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,195,351 16,895 68,164 339,812 6.02%
Articles with tags 4,538,661 4,499 21,840 135,667 1.93%
Articles with comments 247,760 297 1,434 9,069 0.11%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 11 September 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 21
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 11 September 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 21
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 04 Sep 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 11 September 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 22
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 04 Sep 2022 Change since 14 Aug 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,828,275 34,027 55,450 326,568 18.589%
Article 163,663,240 54,603 121,203 870,780 69.415%
Arts And Culture 3,837 1 35 467 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,451 1 1 28 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,647 2 94 651 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,346,202 3,454 5,952 94,241 11.174%
Display Advertisement 465 0 0 1 0.000%
Editorial 14,652 3 201 1,245 0.006%
Family Notices 1,944,701 831 1,099 9,898 0.825%
Humour 29,280 47 303 1,772 0.012%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,819 6 31 356 0.004%
Letters 12,490 31 84 480 0.005%
Literature 35,364 10 70 402 0.015%
News 11,415 23 71 997 0.005%
Obituaries 11,671 41 78 538 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,089 2 4 24 0.000%
Puzzles 43,329 0 435 3,397 0.018%
Reviews 2,087 11 35 106 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,479 0 1 674 0.001%
Sport And Games 16,288 0 260 1,748 0.007%
Weather 11,105 0 229 1,748 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 11 September 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 21
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 11 September 2022 there are 1,724 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,724
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 04 Sep 2022 Change since 14 Aug 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 8 0 0 0 0.46%
International 13 0 0 0 0.74%
National 7 2 2 2 0.40%
New South Wales 525 0 1 10 30.09%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.46%
Queensland 105 0 0 1 6.02%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.83%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.59%
Victoria 410 1 2 3 23.50%
Western Australia 379 5 6 29 21.72%

Newspapers added since 04 Sep 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 14 Aug 2022

title_id title state total link
1794 Claremont-Cottesloe Herald (WA. : 1922 - 1923) Western Australia 435.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1794
1801 Australian Army (National : 1959 -1980) National 31937.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1801
1802 Army (National : 1980 - 2021) National 6097.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1802
1808 The Spectator (Perth, WA : 1900 - 1905) Western Australia 7675.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1808
1809 Bassendean Magnet (WA : 1923 - 1925) Western Australia 1586.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1809
1810 The Trader (West Leederville, WA : 1953) Western Australia 621.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1810
1817 The Western Chronicle (Perth, WA. : 1923) Western Australia 2655.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1817
1777 The Australian Jewish Post (St. Kilda, Vic. : 1966 - 1968) Victoria 5065.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1777

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 04 Sep 2022

title_id title change in articles link
370 Port Lincoln Times (SA : 1927 - 1965; 1992 - 2002) 56,390 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title370
1776 The Jewish Post (Melbourne, Vic. : 1949 - 1966) 16,134 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1776
1777 The Australian Jewish Post (St. Kilda, Vic. : 1966 - 1968) 3,662 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1777
1801 Australian Army (National : 1959 -1980) 16,120 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1801
1802 Army (National : 1980 - 2021) 520 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1802

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 14 Aug 2022

title_id title change in articles link
370 Port Lincoln Times (SA : 1927 - 1965; 1992 - 2002) 56,390 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title370
1779 Australian Jewish Forum (Crows Nest, NSW. : 1941 - 1949) 873 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1779
1788 The Guardian (Perth, WA : 1937 - 1954) 5,900 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1788
1807 The Groper (Perth, WA : 1930 - 1937) 8,086 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1807

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 04 Sep 2022 Change since 14 Aug 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.398%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.362%
National 490,012 16,640 38,034 37,268 0.208%
New South Wales 82,150,875 0 873 -748,798 34.843%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.431%
South Australia 24,617,168 56,390 56,390 54,313 10.441%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.723%
Victoria 41,758,956 19,796 61,048 1,496,061 17.711%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 26,958 557,281 10.708%

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

  Current total Change since 04 Sep 2022 Change since 14 Aug 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.398%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.362%
National 490,193 38,034 38,034 38,034 0.208%
New South Wales 82,150,875 0 1,901 217,218 34.843%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.174%
Queensland 41,098,545 0 0 8,609 17.431%
South Australia 24,617,168 56,390 56,390 56,389 10.441%
Tasmania 15,850,171 0 0 -1 6.723%
Victoria 41,758,956 21,199 61,048 429,698 17.711%
Western Australia 25,247,083 12,972 37,855 957,841 10.708%

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.