5 More Complex Ways Google Sheets Can Preserve Your Sanity as a Librarian

In my last post, I shared five easy ways Google Sheets keeps me organized throughout the year. Today, I’m diving into five more complex, yet indispensable, uses that form the crux of my daily organization. While they might involve a few more technical steps and advanced features, I use these documents to free up my mental energy for everything else my day brings (you know, like teaching, or ordering, or readers advisory).

• Beginning of the Year/End of Year Tasks: These two checklists are essential for staying organized at the most stressful times of the year. I include columns for the task, realistic due dates, and a checkbox. By sorting the date column, I always have my to-dos in chronological order. It’s easy to update as tasks come and go, adding new tasks like refreshing the library website or deleting obsolete ones. This year, I elevated these checklists with conditional formatting so clicking a checkbox instantly crosses out the task and changes its color—it’s incredibly satisfying and visually tracks completion. I list every task, big and small, from putting up my main window display and setting up my desk at the start of the year, to cleaning the circulation desk or writing the end-of-year newsletter. Being digital, I can even update it over the summer when those “aha!” moments strike. Finally, I add all tasks to my calendar so nothing is forgotten!
  

  My closing checklist at the end of last school year

• Adding to Google Forms Responses: I use Google Forms for a bunch of things, but I recently started adding my own columns to the response sheet that are super helpful for data tracking. For example, in the Responses Sheet of my New Book Request form, I added a column for a dropdown menu (think ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘On Order,’ ‘N/A’) to track the progress of each request and added a checkbox to mark when I’ve updated the student. Adding a dropdown is easy and you can customize what the options are! Just click Insert>Dropdown. Structuring the data this way allows me to easily sort requests for ordering and keep track of notifying students. Students love seeing their suggestions on the New Books display, too!
• Organizing Monthly Book Displays: My middle school is only grades 7-8, and I like to make sure no book displays repeat in those two years. I’ve been at my school over a decade, and since 2020-2021, I have used a multi-tabbed spreadsheet to keep track of which displays I curate each month, listing August-May as columns and each of the displays’ locations as the rows, along with the number of books each location can display. Each school year gets a tab at the bottom so I can refer back to the displays I did in years’ past. I also have a row for programming and window displays so all my monthly display planning is in one place. Finally, I include a list of ideas for displays at the bottom if I want to create something new. This sheet really has kept me organized and less stressed!
  

  A screenshot of my monthly book displays from last year.

• Picture book inventory: I have a collection of picture books in my middle school library that are used almost exclusively with instruction. I created a spreadsheet with the list of my picture books by author, title, call number, and which standards each picture book can be used for. It’s easy to sort columns by standard or use CTRL+F to look for specific keywords or topic. I love having all this information at my fingertips about resources in my collection; it has saved me from the blankness I sometimes felt when a teacher asked me for recommendations!
• Lesson planning: I haven’t tried this one yet, but it’s on my Someday List. You can use a Google Sheet to list your lesson title, the class/audience, and slides, resources, or handouts you need (maybe even add a hyperlink to those documents for extra organizing). Name each tab the title of the lesson for easy retrieval. I can already begin to imagine how much time this spreadsheet would save me with streamlining everything into one place – for every lesson I teach!

Whether I need to plan my displays, keep track of all the moving parts of a lesson, or just remember to unplug the printers at the end of the school year, Google Sheets organizes both easy and more complex aspects of my job as a librarian in ways that make sense to me. Hopefully this list – and the previous one! – has given you at least one or two new ideas! Share in the comments what resonates or how you use Google Sheets (or Excel) as a librarian – I’d love to hear your ideas, too!