Chances are that a fair amount of the community data you want is published to web pages, not as downloadable spreadsheets or datasets. Here's a new guide to "scraping" useful data from webpages.

The e-book Scraping for Journalists, by U.K. journalism professor Paul Bradshaw, is a step-by-step, detailed guide to several scraping techniques -- some no more complex than a spreadsheet formula, others allowing you to scrape databases or hundreds of documents.

Bradshaw explains: "You'll be scraping within five minutes of reading the first chapter. But more importantly you'll be learning key principles and techniques for dealing with scraping problems. Everything in this book has a direct application for journalism, and each principle of programming is related to their application in scraping for newsgathering."

The book is sold under the name-your-price model: minimum price $10.99, suggested price $12.99.