STOQS - Reasons to Use (Presented at the AGU Annual Conference 2017 Data Help Desk) McCannMike 2018 STOQS (Spatial Temporal Oceanographic Query System) is a geospatial database software package designed for providing efficient access to <i>in situ </i>oceanographic measurement data. This efficient data access capability enables development of advanced visualization and analysis tools. One of them in wide use is a web-based user interface that follows <a href="http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/Visual_Information-Seeking_Mantra" rel="nofollow">Ben Shneiderman’s mantra</a> (Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand) for exploring collections of observational data.