Our friends at Washington Watch have had some success in their effort to turn messy, un-formatted member earmark requests into usable, analyzable data:

We’ve collected more than 5,000 earmarks, input by people across the country who want to get a handle on how members of Congress and senators direct spending to special projects in their districts and states. (You can see how the annual spending process is going in our FY 2010 Spending Tracker, by the way.)

But there’s plenty more to do, and the chance to win a Kindle for helping out.