1. International Marketing and Output Database Conference 2005
Searching in StatLine
Edwin de Jonge
International Marketing and Output Database Conference 2005

2. What is StatLine?
Online statistical database Statistics Netherlands (SN), since 1996
Contains all output figures of SN
Currently > 1300 cubes
More than 2 billion data cells (200 million figures)

3. StatLine search Large database needs good search!
Search available since 1997
Evolved into powerful search engine (StatLine 1, StatLine 2 and StatLine 3)
Improved further in forthcoming StatLine 4

4. Search Issues (pop. mode)
Keep it simple
All or no text?
It’s the content, …!
Broaden your scope
Tiny hits
Some properties are more equal than others
Use to the max!

5. Search Issues (expert mode)
Easy to use
Full text vs. Keyword search
Quality of content
Scope of search
Cell based indexing
Multiple weighted properties
External usage

6. Easy to use Searching should be: Familiar Simple
Like Google StatLine 4 provides
Complex search algorithms and queries
Simple familiar user interface

7. Free text / keyword search
All content is assigned keywords
Requires keyword knowledge (experts)
Free text search:
All texts are used during search
Less specific
StatLine : combined full text and keyword search

8. Quality of content
Good titles, descriptions and labels crucial for searching!
StatLine:
All metadata can be shared in StatLine
All metadata can have popular/layman variant
“Consumer Price Index” vs. “Inflation”

9. Scope of search Search on Web site must return all relevant content
StatLine:
Search on SN returns hits with all relevant content
Narrow scope: search within a specific theme

10. Cell based indexing Some cubes > 1 million cells
Search result must be relevant selection in cube
E.g. “Amsterdam inhabitants 2004” hits cube with 28 million cells.
StatLine returns 1 cell!
Cells in cubes are indexed
Contains default selections

11. Multiple weighted properties
Cube has many textual properties.
Title
description,
Classification label
Classification description
StatLine 4:
All properties taken into account
Each property different weight

12. External usage Search is effective when used by other organisations
StatLine:
StatLine search = Web service
SN Web site:
calls StatLine web service
combines search results of website and StatLine

13. Conclusion StatLine has mature search facility Easy to use
Full text combined with keyword search
Meta data sharing/popular terms
Search can be scoped
Cell based indexing
Weighted search
WebService
Future…

14. Future Semantic searching
Developed demo in cooperation University of Delft
Use semantic information to support search
Semantic Visual Graph:
Show graph of concept semantically close to search word
Graph is interactive