The Google Refine tool has today seen the release of a new version 2.5, which is now available for download.

Google Refine was previously called Freebase Gridworks, and is a tool for working with 'messy' data, cleaning it up, transforming it from one format into another, extending it with web services, and linking it to databases. It is often used to turn various data sources into one format and structure, and frequently used by coders as well as data journalists.

Tools like these are part of a growing tool set that lower the threshold for potential re-users to interact with data, and turn that data into a useful resource for their own decision making, or for the development of applications.