I learned about Open Refine <http://openrefine.org/> at the Code4Lib
conference, and it looks like it would be a great tool for normalizing
data.  I worked on a few projects in the past in which this would have been
very helpful.

Bohyun Kim wrote a great article about how to query Google Spreadsheet data
from a web page: http://www.bohyunkim.net/blog/archives/2831.  I have found
this approach very helpful for parsing Google Form data.

I have created an application that has been very useful for our library:
http://georgetown-university-libraries.github.io/File-Analyzer/.  We use
this application within our digitization and ingest workflows.  We have
written some custom code to convert files exported from our ILS.  If you
check out the wiki pages
<https://github.com/Georgetown-University-Libraries/File-Analyzer/wiki>,
you might find some tasks that would be useful to recommend.

Good luck with your workshop.

Terry


On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 1:51 AM, Owen Stephens <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I'm doing a workshop in the UK at a library tech unconference-style event
> (Pi and Mash http://piandmash.info) on automating computer based tasks.
> I want to cover tools that are usable by non-programmers and that would
> work in a typical library environment. The types of tools I'm thinking of
> are:
>
> MacroExpress
> AutoHotKey
> iMacros for Firefox
>
> While I'm hoping workshop attendees will bring ideas about tasks they
> would like to automate the type of thing I have in mind are things like:
>
> Filling out a set of standard data on a GUI or Web form (e.g. standard set
> of budget codes for an order)
> Processing a list of item barcodes from a spreadsheet and doing something
> with them on the library system (e.g. change loan status, check for holds)
> Similarly for User IDs
> Navigating to a web page and doing some task
>
> Clearly some of these tasks would be better automated with appropriate
> APIs and scripts, but I want to try to introduce those without programming
> skills to some of the concepts and tools and essentially how they can work
> around problems themselves to some extent.
>
> What tools do you use for this kind of automation task, and what kind of
> tasks do they best deal with?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Owen
>
> Owen Stephens
> Owen Stephens Consulting
> Web: http://www.ostephens.com
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Telephone: 0121 288 6936
>



-- 
Terry Brady
Applications Programmer Analyst
Georgetown University Library Information Technology
https://www.library.georgetown.edu/lit/code
425-298-5498