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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, 30 April 2023

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 30 April 2023
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 54
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 30 April 2023 there are 237,616,142 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 23 Apr 2023 Change since 02 Apr 2023 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 237,616,142 157,941 540,348 3,104,052 100.00%
Articles with corrections 14,749,702 15,243 70,069 894,163 6.21%
Articles with tags 4,716,847 5,682 23,291 313,853 1.99%
Articles with comments 261,871 348 1,651 23,180 0.11%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 30 April 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 50
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 30 April 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 50
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 23 Apr 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 30 April 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 55
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 23 Apr 2023 Change since 02 Apr 2023 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 44,375,302 33,818 121,491 873,595 18.675%
Article 164,804,485 110,066 370,398 2,012,025 69.357%
Arts And Culture 4,268 9 27 898 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,477 0 0 54 0.001%
Commerce And Business 4,863 65 239 1,867 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 26,481,822 12,587 43,982 229,861 11.145%
Display Advertisement 491 0 1 27 0.000%
Editorial 16,623 98 288 3,216 0.007%
Family Notices 1,966,567 1,502 4,601 31,764 0.828%
Humour 31,019 23 348 3,511 0.013%
Law, Courts, And Crime 10,904 22 90 1,441 0.005%
Letters 13,296 33 115 1,286 0.006%
Literature 35,771 3 42 809 0.015%
News 12,381 41 134 1,963 0.005%
Obituaries 13,573 57 331 2,440 0.006%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,122 4 9 57 0.000%
Puzzles 48,379 224 679 8,447 0.020%
Reviews 2,318 12 41 337 0.001%
Shipping Notices 2,635 23 73 830 0.001%
Sport And Games 19,059 131 397 4,519 0.008%
Weather 14,505 152 598 5,148 0.006%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 30 April 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 52
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 30 April 2023 there are 1,747 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,747
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 23 Apr 2023 Change since 02 Apr 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 0 0 21 29.55%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.44%
Queensland 106 0 0 2 5.84%
South Australia 154 0 0 0 8.49%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.34%
Victoria 418 0 3 11 23.04%
Western Australia 379 0 0 29 20.89%

Newspapers added since 23 Apr 2023

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 02 Apr 2023

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 23 Apr 2023

title_id title change in articles link
604 Rutherglen Sun and Chiltern Valley Advertiser (Vic. : 1886 - 1957) 52,910 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title604
616 Upper Murray and Mitta Herald (Vic. : 1885 - 1955) 27,763 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title616
1585 Sunraysia Daily (Mildura, Vic. : 1920 - 1942) 65,174 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1585
1830 nan 12,094 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1830

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 02 Apr 2023

title_id title change in articles link
310 Richmond Guardian (Vic. : 1884 - 1885; 1894 - 1897; 1900 - 1930) 18,227 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title310
326 Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 - 1955) 37,836 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title326
604 Rutherglen Sun and Chiltern Valley Advertiser (Vic. : 1886 - 1957) 217,961 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title604
616 Upper Murray and Mitta Herald (Vic. : 1885 - 1955) 72,979 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title616
1585 Sunraysia Daily (Mildura, Vic. : 1920 - 1942) 100,584 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1585
1825 The Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (Vic. : 1913 - 1920) 22,876 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1825
1828 Myrtleford Times and Ovens Valley Advertiser (Vic. : 1930 - 1955) 5,268 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1828

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 23 Apr 2023 Change since 02 Apr 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.388%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.359%
National 657,326 0 0 204,582 0.277%
New South Wales 82,411,113 0 0 -488,560 34.682%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.172%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.309%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 0 247,642 10.441%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.671%
Victoria 42,944,178 157,941 540,348 2,681,283 18.073%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 557,281 10.625%

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

  Current total Change since 23 Apr 2023 Change since 02 Apr 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.388%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.359%
National 663,996 0 0 211,837 0.279%
New South Wales 82,411,113 0 0 477,456 34.682%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.172%
Queensland 41,128,577 0 0 38,641 17.309%
South Australia 24,810,497 0 0 249,718 10.441%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.671%
Victoria 42,904,596 145,847 511,666 1,361,541 18.056%
Western Australia 25,247,083 0 0 877,721 10.625%

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.