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Data acquisition by seismic centers relies on real-time systems, likeSeisComP3, Antelope and Earthworm. However, these are complex systems that are designed for fast and precisely defined standard real-time analyses. Therefore, it is not a simple task to access or modify internal routines, and to integrate them into custom-processing workflows or to perform in-depth data analyses. Often a library is necessary that provides convenient access to data and allows easy control over all of the operations that are to be performed on the data. ObsPy is such a library, which is designed to access and process seismological waveform data and metadata. We use short and simple examples here to demonstrate how effective it is to use Python for seismological data analysis. Then, we illustrate the general capabilities of ObsPy, and highlight some of its specific aspects that are relevant for seismological data centers and observatories, through presentation of real-world examples. Finally, we demonstrate how the ObsPy library can be used to develop custom graphical user interface applications. Why Python?In the scientific community in general, Python has been emerging as one of the most popular programming languages. Its syntax is easy to learn, and it enforces a unified coding style (e.g. by using indentations instead of brackets) that has very little command-flow overhead. Furthermore, it comes with a well-documented, easy-touse, and powerful standard library (http://docs.python.org/ library/). The readability is enhanced drastically, which makes Python a very good choice, and not just for students with little or no basic programming skills. In a computer laboratory practical held in the Munich Geophysics Department with undergraduate students with little programming background, under supervision, the students were able to write their own signal processing scripts after just two afternoon lessons. Just recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also chose Python as the language to be taught to undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering students.

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