Adlib Tools

Updated on 18 Feb 2020

A few excepts from the feedback that was provided to the executive level of how my work and the applications I develop impact upon the broader staff commumity at the State Library NSW. These testimonials are for Adlib Tools.

Boris Nazarov

  • Using Adlib Super Tools is a crucial step in how I catalog records as part of the projects I am working on, either creating new records or editing existing ones.

  • With new records, these are large sets of data, each monthly upload varies between 500-2000 records per project. To do so individually for each record in Adlib would be impossible in this timeframe without the ingestion of XML files into Adlib, as there are numerous entries for various fields in the various tabs in Adlib.

  • With editing existing records. Extracting it into CSV/XLS format makes it easier to edit/add data into specific fields, identify issues, summarise data into tables/graphs, note trends etc. using MS Excel. Exporting, editing, and re-importing is a significantly faster approach than editing each individual record.

Angus Paterson

The Adlib Tools application saves the DEP Digitisation team time by simplifying the process of extracting metadata from Adlib to be used in metadata csv files sent to external vendors with collections for digitisation.

Currently there is a problem with extracting data from Adlib as a straight csv as if the record has repeated fields the csv export will only capture the first instances of these fields. Repeated fields in Adlib are very common, as such we need to extract the metadata as an xml file which extracts all of the repeated fields. To then manually process the xml file into the external vendor csv is a repetitive, laborious task which we’ve found to be rife with potential for human error.

Adlib tools simplifies this by converting the extracted xml file back into a csv but with all instances of repeated fields visible in an easy to use format which is then very simple for any team member to work with and condense the required info into the final external vendor template.

As our team often processes over 100 Adlib collection csvs for external vendors a year (which will likely be a growing number as the program focuses on more manuscript/negative collections) we’re very happy with the time saved using this application.

Andrew Trigg

Adlib Super Tools has greatly enhanced the capabilities of the Digitisation Team’s work on the mass digitisation of large and complex collections of photographic negatives including:

  • Max Dupain and Associations (160,000 negatives)
  • ACP (235,000 negatives)

Adlib Super Tools facilitates the automated creation of catalogue records which, if entered manually, would consume an inestimable amount of staff resources. Manually doing this work without Adlib Super Tools would also be more prone to human error which is likely to occur when manually cloning catalogue records.

Using Adlib Super Tools librarians working on the Dupain and ACP collections have been able to perform numerous bulk updates to large sets of data in catalogue records. It would not be possible for the librarians to do this without Adlib Super Tools. This is especially true for updates of data in repeated fields, where field type defines a paired free-text field (Adlib’s find and replace function does not facilitate this). For example, using Adlib Super Tools we were able to quickly amend 1,155 General Notes fields in the Max Dupain records.

Using Adlib Super Tools we have:

  • automated the creation of 7,835 Max Dupain and Associates catalogue records (111,081 negatives) in Adlib
  • automated the creation of 8,626 ACP catalogue records (94,370 negatives) in Adlib
  • created collection metadata CSVs for 71,837 negatives

Adlib Super Tools has dramatically decreased the amount of time spent by staff extracting from the catalogue the collection metadata which is provided to external digitisation vendors.

Using Adlib Super Tools to convert the raw AdlibXML to CSV has saved innumerable hours for the Collection Digitisation LTs.