You are here

Let the Robots Do the Work

Title (author1): 
Mr
First names (author1): 
James
Surname (author 1): 
Sam
Institution: 
Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University
Country: 
UNITED STATES
Presentation type: 
spoken paper
Date: 
28 Sept Wednesday
Start time: 
1130
Venue: 
LoC Madison Building: Montpelier Rm.
Abstract: 

Nobody likes doing boring, repetitive tasks. They are tedious, error-prone, and divert precious labor hours to low-skill tasks. Automation scripts make these a moot point.
 
Following the adoption of a high-throughput digitization workflow, the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University faced a bottleneck of these tasks in its post-digitization processes: embedding metadata, checksum creation and validation, derivative creation, file uploading, and quality testing. The solution: code some scripts and let the robots do the work. Leveraging open-source technologies such as Python and FFMPEG has enabled its audio archivists to automate the repetitive tasks and focus on higher-skill tasks.
 
This paper will outline how this solution was conceived, built, and deployed. In the process, the speaker will point out possible future tangents they, or other archivists, could take with code anyone can download and modify.