This is a cross-post of an article written for the NTEN newsletter and blog.

Policy-oriented organizations have long produced dizzying amounts of statistical content. In the past, rows and rows of data would die a quick death in thick policy reports or inscrutable spreadsheets. Don't let your data fall victim!

A few days ago, Dan Cohen, the Director of Research Projects at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, lamented the lack of non-commercial API's: