1. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Adding to the Toolbox: Creating and Maintaining a Searchable Database of Events Tim Mullen Federal Reserve Board

2. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Background “The Green Notebook”: notes and news clippings from 1948-1975. Early years only have 10-20 entries per year. There are a few attempts to do a chronology of monetary policy that also covers international policy. Entry examples: –Jul. 15, 1959 - Nationwide steel strike of 116 days. Involved 519,000 employees. Estimated loss of 41,900,000 man-days –May 10, 1971 - Exchange Market Crisis. Bonn government floated the Mark. –Aug. 11, 1972 - The United States ended its Vietnam ground combat role. –Feb. 12, 1973 – US government announced 10 percent devaluation of the dollar. –Dec. 13-14, 1973 – Truckers protest fuel crisis in two day strike. Idea (circa 1998): We should type these up to have electronically Idea (circa 2001): We should create a web page. Idea (circa 2004): We should put these in a database. Idea (circa 2007): We should graph these.

3. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Manually adding events to charts

4. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 A common way of displaying events

5. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Using a timeline to display events

6. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Adding filtering to a timeline

7. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 What can we do to visualize events? Located open source event charting software. Found easily incorporated seed data for events. Wrote connector for FAME databases

8. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009

12. The next step—maintaining the database: How do we add new events? What are the metadata requirements? –How do we categorize events? How do we find events? Flagging events for review and consistency

13. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 How do we add new events? What constitutes an event? –Almost anything; relaxed criteria in early stages of populating database Need verifiable source (website, book, paper, expert, etc.) –Trust users to know what events are relevant Who adds events? –Database administrator(s) Full read/write access –Users Restrictions on write access to database After set number of submissions, grant admin privileges

14. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 What are the Metadata requirements? Event subject/main title Event date – start/end Location – event and impact? Information source Author of event entry (for follow up questions) Categorization for filtering Distribution restrictions Reviewed, but not currently using, existing metadata structures

15. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 How do we categorize events? By type – fixed, high-level list –Economic, Financial, Political, Natural, Social By category – allow choice of known taxonomies –Journal of Economic Literature Classification Pros: well known and organized Cons: focus on economics, lack of structure for social, political, natural events –North American Industry Classification System Pros: well known and widely used Cons: International events, changes every 5 years, industry only

16. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 How do we categorize events (2)? –Fed in Print Subject headings Pros: known to our users, covers wide variety of topics outside of economics Cons: not used outside of Fed. Res. system, too granular –Example of subjects starting with letter “G”: Gambling industryGovernment employees Game theoryGovernment lending Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982Government National Mortgage Association Gas industryGovernment ownership GasolineGovernment Performance and Results Act of 1993 Geithner, Timothy F.Government securities General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Organization)Government Securities Act of 1986 General Motors CorporationGovernment spending policy GeographyGovernment-sponsored enterprises GlobalizationGrain trade GlobexGramlich, Edward M. Going public (Securities)Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act GoldGreenspan, Alan Gold - PricesGresham's law Gold - PurchasingGross domestic product Gold clauseGross national product Gold reservesGross state product Gold standardGroup of Seven countries Government business enterprisesGroup of Ten countries

17. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 How do we find and report events? Text based search –Search title –Search body Filtering by: –Date, type, category, keyword Browse all events Each event links to page with: –Body and all metadata –Reporting form which will flag event for follow-up

18. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Future plans: Finalize submission form guidelines Finalize categorization choice set Create application to export events Higher frequency time display Incorporate use of vintage data

19. IASSIST 2009, Tampere, Finland 26-29 May 2009 Last slide…. I would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions. Please feel free to call or email: Tim Mullen Timothy.A.Mullen@frb.gov (202) 452-3898