Summary statistics of series held by the National Archives of Australia, 2016 to 2025

This dataset contains information and statistics describing record series held by the National Archives of Australia (NAA). The data was harvested from RecordSearch, the NAA's online database, using this notebook. Under the Commonwealth Record Series System a 'series' is defined as 'a group of records that has resulted from the same accumulation or filing process or that has a similar format or information content'. Series are created by government agencies, and contain any number of items. The NAA uses series to organise, describe, and manage its holdings. For example, Series A1 contains over 60,000 correspondence files created by the Department of External Affairs and its successors between 1903 and 1938. This dataset aims to provide an overview of the NAA's holdings by compiling basic information about each series. It contains four data harvests created in late 2016, May 2021, April 2022, and May 2025. By comparing these different data files it is possible to observe changes in the overall shape of the collection, such as how many items are described, open to the public, and digitised. This should help future researchers explore the impact of digital access on historical research. For example, the 2016 data was analysed in Sherratt, 'Hacking Heritage: Understanding the Limits of Online Access', 2019. The 2016 data file contains the following fields: identifier – NAA series identifier title – series title items_described – total number of items in this series that are described in RecordSearch items_digitised – total number of items in this series that have been digitised The 2021, 2022, and 2025 data files contains the following fields: identifier – NAA series identifier title – series title contents_date_str – string containing the date range of the series contents contents_start_date – normalised start date of the series contents contents_end_date – normalised end date of the series contents quantity_total – shelf length of series holdings in metres described_note – note indicating the current status of item level description in this series described_total – total number of items in this series that are described in RecordSearch digitised_total – total number of items in this series that have been digitised access_open_total – total number of items in this series with the access status of 'open' access_owe_total – total number of items in this series with the access status of 'open with exception' access_closed_total – total number of items in this series with the access status of 'closed' access_nye_total – total number of items in this series with the access status of 'not yet examined' Note that due to changes in RecordSearch in 2025 it is no longer possible to harvest data.