May 30: Spreadsheets here, Spreadsheets there, Spreadsheets everywhere
Spreadsheets are a lot harder than they look. I spent three hours working on organizing and condensing spreadsheets this evening. I was tasked- the week prior-with condensing six different excel documents with the names and information of all the children enrolled with our community partner LTISD Summer Squires. The bookmobile needed a list of all the children and their contact information, so we could then add their library card number next to it that information. From there, during the programs we were at we could let the children checkout library books or have them get free books (if they do not have a library card), based upon the information within the list. Therefore, to make our lives on the bookmobile easier I made one excel spreadsheet with all the children enrolled for the weeks the library was visiting. Within the spreadsheet I included the child’s name along with their parents/guardian’s name, their address, other contact information, along with a column next to the child’s name for their library card number if they had one.
The task was very time consuming and took me about four hours to complete (just one more than I originally with my supervisor allotted for). However, it possibly took longer as in the beginning I had several hiccups and lots of learning curves. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to move columns of information on the enrollment sheets into the layout of my final spreadsheet. Then, it took several more tries before I was able to figure out how to paste into my new spreadsheet without deleting other information. Eventually, after some researching and trial runs, I got the hang of it and the process was a lot smoother by the time I added the second enrollment spreadsheet to the final one. Although, this was perhaps my least favorite task I have done so far it served as a reminder that some tasks may take longer than you originally plan and that is okay at times. I also learned that with time and resources one can still accomplish their goals, you simply must have patience and determination to see you through.
