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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Efficiency

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Small Steps Make Giant Leaps: An Incremental Approach To Technical Services Workflow Automation, Rebecca B. French Feb 2020

Small Steps Make Giant Leaps: An Incremental Approach To Technical Services Workflow Automation, Rebecca B. French

Libraries

James Madison University Libraries' workflow for distributing its Special Collections finding aids to various discovery platforms historically involved a significant amount of manual data entry and hand-encoding. Through a series of small steps, we have been gradually improving this process by automating select tasks. I will share different iterations of our workflow, the automated solutions we've put into place, and the tools and technologies used, including XSLTs, APIs, and Spaceport, a custom Python app. As evidenced through the efficiencies, staff excitement, and other benefits we've observed, automation has transformed a previously tedious process while also facilitating the completion of other …


Spaceport: A Finding Aid Launchpad, Rebecca B. French Oct 2019

Spaceport: A Finding Aid Launchpad, Rebecca B. French

Libraries

JMU Libraries distributes its Special Collections finding aids to a number of discovery platforms, a process which historically has involved a significant amount of hand-encoding and manual data entry. We recently developed and implemented Spaceport, a Python app that has revolutionized this workflow. This presentation provides an overview of the app's functionality, which includes generating EADs for Virginia Heritage, HTML files for upload to the Libraries website, and MARCXML records for our catalog and OCLC. It also describes the efficiencies and other benefits we have observed from Spaceport's use.


Taking Control Of Archdesc: Implementing Spaceport For Special Collections Finding Aids, Tiffany Cole, Rebecca B. French Aug 2019

Taking Control Of Archdesc: Implementing Spaceport For Special Collections Finding Aids, Tiffany Cole, Rebecca B. French

Libraries

This poster describes a project to develop Spaceport, a Python app that transforms EAD finding aids from ArchivesSpace into EADs for Virginia Heritage, HTML files for the JMU Libraries website, and MARCXML records for the catalog. It outlines the challenges and needs that led to Spaceport's development and describes benefits experienced from its implementation.