That sounds like a valid approach, any idea what tools I could use to get the define the area and get the screenshot?
There's a very popular and minimalist CLI called scrot that I think would be ideal... well scratch that, I made a search and our question has already been asked and answered:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/280475/how-can-instantaneous...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21497447/ocr-on-a-screen...