St. Petersburg Archival Committee (Robin RPA)

2023: Automation of processing of phonocounts for the Archival Committee of St. Petersburg

On the basis of the ROBIN intelligent automation platform, St. Petersburg IAC developed and implemented a software robot for the subordinate institution of the Archival Committee of St. Petersburg - the Central State Archive of Film and Photographic Documents (TsGAKFFD SPb).

The robot can work with documents 24 hours a day and perform tasks related to the processing of tens of thousands of digital copies of sound documents.

The archive contains materials that appeared in the process of activities of enterprises and organizations of St. Petersburg and the region, as well as state, political, public figures, creative workers and scientists.

A software robot was installed on several computers of the archive, the task of which was to speed up the work related to the maintenance of the State Information System "Archives of St. Petersburg." In particular, the tasks of the robot included the creation of compressed versions of digital copies of phonographic documents, work with an electronic fund for use and a software and hardware complex that converts sound files into transcripts.

Instead of 260 working days that would be required for these works by employees of TsGAKFD St. Petersburg, the robot completed the necessary tasks in 44 days. 44,000 digital copies of sound documents were processed automatically. The time to help debug and maintain the robot, as well as control over its work, came down to 6 working days.

Another software robot in TsGAKFFD SPb helps to process records from blocked phonograph records. The archive staff was tasked with processing audio files of recordings from phonograph records from different years of the twentieth century. Including the times of World War II and, in particular, the period of the blockade of Leningrad. To do this, experts in one day modified a robot that previously performed other tasks related to the processing of digital copies of recordings of phonodocuments.

The robot processed more than 16 thousand sound files from phonograph records in 21 working days. It would take 165 working days for archive staff to do so.