A query consisting of up to ten separate words or a short phrase (surrounded by double quotes) can be entered in the input field. The option to include historical spelling variants can be selected from the dropdown menu, as well as a specific genre, such as poetry or plays, to which the search should be limited. If no genre is selected, the entire DBNL dataset will be used to generate the frequency chart.
The results are displayed in terms of relative frequency (number of matching items for a year divided by the total number of items for that year). This can be compared with the absolute frequency counts per year using the frequency buttons below the chart. When hovering over the data points in the chart the relevant year and item count are shown and by clicking on a point the user is redirected to a page with all documents included in the count for a specific.
When entering a new search, the results of previous searches can be kept in the chart in order to compare multiple queries, or they can be individually deleted. In addition, the frequency data resulting from a query can be downloaded as a CSV file for later reference and use in other applications.
