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, 5 February 2023

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 05 February 2023
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 42
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 05 February 2023 there are 236,732,636 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 29 Jan 2023 Change since 08 Jan 2023 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 236,732,636 30,498 155,999 2,220,546 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,544,892 18,149 70,370 689,353 6.14%
Articles with tags 4,650,063 5,575 24,366 247,069 1.96%
Articles with comments 256,507 604 2,152 17,816 0.11%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 05 February 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 41
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 05 February 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 41
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 29 Jan 2023 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 05 February 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 43
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 29 Jan 2023 Change since 08 Jan 2023 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 44,165,351 9,714 44,813 663,644 18.656%
Article 164,210,547 19,021 97,830 1,418,087 69.365%
Arts And Culture 4,101 14 58 731 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,462 1 4 39 0.001%
Commerce And Business 4,269 51 187 1,273 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,411,520 1,516 11,818 159,559 11.157%
Display Advertisement 485 11 18 21 0.000%
Editorial 15,865 89 389 2,458 0.007%
Family Notices 1,956,594 368 1,964 21,791 0.826%
Humour 30,093 -201 -96 2,585 0.013%
Law, Courts, And Crime 10,637 25 223 1,174 0.004%
Letters 13,069 37 123 1,059 0.006%
Literature 35,614 23 52 652 0.015%
News 12,052 82 322 1,634 0.005%
Obituaries 12,715 19 209 1,582 0.005%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,100 1 5 35 0.000%
Puzzles 46,478 189 951 6,546 0.020%
Reviews 2,233 13 29 252 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,527 10 22 722 0.001%
Sport And Games 18,073 102 695 3,533 0.008%
Weather 12,860 89 504 3,503 0.005%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 05 February 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 42
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 05 February 2023 there are 1,740 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,740
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 29 Jan 2023 Change since 08 Jan 2023 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 8 0 0 0 0.44%
International 13 0 0 0 0.72%
National 9 0 0 4 0.50%
New South Wales 536 1 5 21 29.79%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.44%
Queensland 106 0 0 2 5.89%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.56%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.39%
Victoria 412 0 0 5 22.90%
Western Australia 379 0 0 29 21.07%

Newspapers added since 29 Jan 2023

title_id title state total link
1824 Coolamon Echo (NSW : 1898 - 1905) New South Wales 10365.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1824

Newspapers added since 08 Jan 2023

title_id title state total link
1824 Coolamon Echo (NSW : 1898 - 1905) New South Wales 10365.000000 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1824

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 29 Jan 2023

title_id title change in articles link
88 Queanbeyan Age (NSW : 1927 - 1954) 6,476 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title88
229 The Ararat Advertiser and Chronicle for the Stawell and Wimmera Districts (Vic. : 1899 - 1918) 119 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title229
1492 Border Morning Mail (Albury, NSW : 1934 - 1935; 1938 - 1951) 13,538 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1492

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 08 Jan 2023

title_id title change in articles link
43 Camperdown Chronicle (Vic. : 1875 - 1954) 2,061 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title43
88 Queanbeyan Age (NSW : 1927 - 1954) 16,792 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title88
229 The Ararat Advertiser and Chronicle for the Stawell and Wimmera Districts (Vic. : 1899 - 1918) 35,938 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title229
1346 Sawtell Guardian (NSW : 1970 - 1976) 34 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1346
1492 Border Morning Mail (Albury, NSW : 1934 - 1935; 1938 - 1951) 65,965 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1492
1815 The Manning River Chronicle (Wingham, NSW : 1886 - 1888) 811 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1815
1821 Narracan Shire Advocate (Moe, Vic.: 1944 - 1955) 7,133 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1821

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 29 Jan 2023 Change since 08 Jan 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.393%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.361%
National 657,326 0 0 204,582 0.278%
New South Wales 82,365,450 30,379 110,867 -534,223 34.793%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.173%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.373%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 0 247,642 10.480%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.695%
Victoria 42,106,335 119 45,132 1,843,440 17.786%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 557,281 10.665%

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

  Current total Change since 29 Jan 2023 Change since 08 Jan 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.393%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.361%
National 663,996 0 0 211,837 0.280%
New South Wales 82,365,450 30,379 113,929 431,793 34.793%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.173%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.373%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 0 249,718 10.480%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.695%
Victoria 42,106,335 119 45,132 735,377 17.786%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 917,017 10.665%

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.