Data Is Plural

Evictions. A team led by Princeton sociologist and Evicted author Matthew Desmond has compiled the United States’ first-ever national-scale, publicly-available database of eviction metrics. Desmond’s Eviction Lab has collected more than 80 million records from cities, counties, and states across the country, and used them to calculate the number of evictions and eviction filings in each place. (Short methodology here; longer methodology here.) You can download the aggregate data in bulk (after supplying your email address) and explore it through an interactive map. Related: “In 83 Million Eviction Records, a Sweeping and Intimate New Look at Housing in America” (The New York Times), which includes additional background and graphics.

Executive orders. The U.S. Office of the Federal Register publishes structured data on every presidential executive order since 1994. For each of the 886 entries, the dataset provides the order’s title, the date it was signed, the president who signed it, and where to find it in the Federal Register. [h/t u/cavedave]

State campaign finance laws. The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute has launched a database of current and historical state campaign finance laws. The information goes back to 1996 and describes each state’s contribution limits, various kinds of prohibitions, disclosure rules, and more. You can download the full dataset or explore it online. [h/t Rachel Shorey]

Academic parental leave policies. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Santa Fe Institute have compiled a dataset of 200+ universities’ parental leave policies. For each institution, the dataset indicates the amount of paid leave granted to//taken by both women and men, and what type of leave it is (e.g., relief from teaching, from all duties, et cetera). [h/t Sam Way]

Miscellany. The University of Florida’s Larry Winner has collected hundreds of “miscellaneous” datasets, many from niche academic studies. A few highlights: “Antiseptic as Treatment for Amputation – Upper Limb” (from an 1870 study), “Sex, Lies, and Religiosity” (1971), and “Reading Times by E-Reader Device and Lighting Conditions” (2013). [h/t Charles Minshew]