Prepare materials for preservation, storage, or display
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 5 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 5 occupations that perform it.
- Conserve and preserve manuscripts, records, and other artifacts.
- Preserve records, documents, and objects, copying records to film, videotape, audiotape, disk, or computer formats as necessary.
- Install, arrange, assemble, and prepare artifacts for exhibition, ensuring the artifacts' safety, reporting their status and condition, and identifying and correcting any problems with the set up.
- Frame and mat artwork for display or sale.
- Archive diagnostic material, such as histologic slides and blocks.
- Clean objects, such as paper, textiles, wood, metal, glass, rock, pottery, and furniture, using cleansers, solvents, soap solutions, and polishes.
- Prepare artifacts for storage and shipping.
- Repair, restore, and reassemble artifacts, designing and fabricating missing or broken parts, to restore them to their original appearance and prevent deterioration.
- Preserve or direct preservation of objects, using plaster, resin, sealants, hardeners, and shellac.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
5 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Arrange displays or decorations”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Set up merchandise displays | 10 |
| Arrange items for use or display | 9 |
| Arrange artwork, products, or props | 6 |
| Decorate indoor or outdoor spaces | 3 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.