OECD Launches OECD.Stat

[laura.cox@frontlinegms.com]

Paris, France, 4th December 2007, OECD announces the impending 
launch of a new beta service for accessing OECD Statistics called 
OECD.Stat. Following five years of behind-the-scenes work to 
combine OECD's databases into a single system, OECD.Stat will 
enable users to search for and extract data from across OECD's 
many databases for the first time.

OECD is embarking on a programme of rolling releases that will 
see three new dissemination services with a multitude of new 
features. OECD.Stat is the first and will be launched as a beta 
version, as part of SourceOECD, at Online Information in London 
on the 4th December 2007

Please see www.sourceoecd.org/database/oecdstat for details.

OECD.Stat offers three key features:

* Discovery: users can search for complex statistical data across 
OECD databases with one click access to the datasets themselves 
from the search results.

* Mix and Merge: for the first time, users can extract data from 
across all 50 databases in one enquiry. New functions enable 
users to gather and assemble data from various datasets in unique 
and customizable tables.

* Metadata: Improved metadata down to the level of each datapoint 
means that users can understand the origins of each number and 
the overall context, aiding comprehension.

Enrico Giovannini, OECD's Chief Statistician said: "The gathering 
of reliable and intelligent information is at the core of good 
politics, and societies are changing quickly, so statistics must 
continuously evolve to reflect the world in which we live. The 
challenge for the statistical tools that we are delivering today, 
and will deliver tomorrow, is not onle to make statistics easier 
to find and understand, but also to enable us to build a 
foundation to present information that is yet to come."

"The launch of OECD.Stat in SourceOECD, OECD's iLibrary, is the 
first step in an extensive project to enhance OECD's publishing 
services for users," said Toby Green, Head of OECD Publishing. 
"Over the coming twelve months we'll be launching a number of 
major improvements to our online services covering both our 
statistical and analytical publications, OECD.Stat is just the 
start."

Contact: Toby Green, Head of Publishing
toby.green@oecd.org

About OECD

OECD (www.oecd.org) brings together the governments of countries 
committed to democracy and the market economy from around the 
world to support sustainable economic growth, raise living 
standards, maintain financial stability and assist other 
countries' economic development.

OECD Publishing (www.oecd.org/publishing) is one of the world's 
largest publishers in the fields of economics and public policy. 
OECD Publishing disseminates OECD's intellectual output, both 
analytical and statistical.

Information about publications is available through the OECD 
Online Bookshop and through SourceOECD, its groundbreaking online 
library of statistical databases, books and periodicals.

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