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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