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, 20 November 2022

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 20 November 2022
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 31
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 20 November 2022 there are 236,229,221 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 13 Nov 2022 Change since 23 Oct 2022 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 236,229,221 15,483 181,132 1,717,131 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,363,407 14,971 64,441 507,868 6.08%
Articles with tags 4,591,074 5,077 22,079 188,080 1.94%
Articles with comments 251,941 480 2,127 13,250 0.11%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 20 November 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 31
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 20 November 2022
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 31
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 13 Nov 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 20 November 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 32
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 13 Nov 2022 Change since 23 Oct 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 43,999,850 7,232 65,739 498,143 18.626%
Article 163,915,128 6,971 101,739 1,122,668 69.388%
Arts And Culture 4,007 16 75 637 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,457 1 4 34 0.001%
Commerce And Business 3,941 45 70 945 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,374,312 948 12,023 122,351 11.165%
Display Advertisement 466 1 1 2 0.000%
Editorial 15,218 100 166 1,811 0.006%
Family Notices 1,950,055 460 2,093 15,252 0.825%
Humour 29,967 59 436 2,459 0.013%
Law, Courts, And Crime 9,924 12 33 461 0.004%
Letters 12,801 46 146 791 0.005%
Literature 35,455 6 49 493 0.015%
News 11,537 13 62 1,119 0.005%
Obituaries 12,228 112 241 1,095 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,094 0 1 29 0.000%
Puzzles 44,771 210 408 4,839 0.019%
Reviews 2,190 5 28 209 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,493 1 3 688 0.001%
Sport And Games 16,979 60 213 2,439 0.007%
Weather 11,891 134 217 2,534 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 20 November 2022
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 31
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 20 November 2022 there are 1,730 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,730
Earliest publication date 05 March 1803
Latest publication date 09 December 2021

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 13 Nov 2022 Change since 23 Oct 2022 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 8 0 0 0 0.45%
International 13 0 0 0 0.74%
National 9 0 1 4 0.51%
New South Wales 527 0 0 12 29.84%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.45%
Queensland 106 0 0 2 6.00%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.72%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.51%
Victoria 411 0 1 4 23.27%
Western Australia 379 0 0 29 21.46%

Newspapers added since 13 Nov 2022

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 23 Oct 2022

title_id title state total link
1820 Live Wire (Yallourn, Vic. : 1935 - 1955) Victoria 25150.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1820

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 13 Nov 2022

title_id title change in articles link
1820 Live Wire (Yallourn, Vic. : 1935 - 1955) 15,483 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1820

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 23 Oct 2022

title_id title change in articles link
43 Camperdown Chronicle (Vic. : 1875 - 1954) 2,814 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title43
250 The Lilydale Express (Vic. : 1886 - 1897; 1914 - 1955) 16,658 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title250
370 Port Lincoln Times (SA : 1927 - 1965; 1992 - 2002) 45,888 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title370
1672 Air Force News (National : 1997 - 2020) 1,980 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1672
1802 Army (National : 1980 - 2021) 22,893 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1802
1804 Royal Australian Navy News (National : 1958 - 2021) 62,953 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1804

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 13 Nov 2022 Change since 23 Oct 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.396%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.362%
National 657,328 0 84,133 204,584 0.278%
New South Wales 82,163,804 0 0 -735,869 34.781%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.173%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.410%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 45,888 247,642 10.503%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.710%
Victoria 41,804,564 15,483 44,622 1,541,669 17.697%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 557,281 10.688%

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

  Current total Change since 13 Nov 2022 Change since 23 Oct 2022 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.396%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.362%
National 663,998 0 90,622 211,839 0.281%
New South Wales 82,163,804 0 0 230,147 34.781%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.173%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.410%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 45,888 249,718 10.503%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.710%
Victoria 41,804,564 15,483 44,622 475,306 17.697%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 957,841 10.688%

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.