Summary and Schedule
Library Carpentry aims to teach librarians, information professionals, and researchers basic concepts, skills, and tools for working with data so that they can get more done in less time, and with less pain. This lesson was designed to teach the principles of working with data in spreadsheets.
Getting Started
Library Carpentry’s teaching is hands-on, so participants are encouraged to use their own computers to insure the proper setup of tools for an efficient workflow. These lessons assume no prior knowledge of the skills or tools.
For Instructors
If you are teaching this lesson in a workshop, please see the Instructor Notes.
| Setup Instructions | Download files required for the lesson | |
| Duration: 00h 00m | 1. Using spreadsheet programs for data organization | What are good data practices for using spreadsheets for organizing data? |
| Duration: 00h 15m | 2. Formatting data tables in Spreadsheets | How should data be formatted in spreadsheets? |
| Duration: 00h 45m | 3. Formatting problems | What common mistakes are made when formatting spreadsheets? |
| Duration: 01h 05m | 4. Dates as data | How are dates handled by computers? |
| Duration: 01h 30m | 5. Basic quality assurance and control | How can you keep data entry clean? |
| Duration: 02h 00m | 6. Exporting data from spreadsheets |
What problems are there with Excel files? How can we share data from spreadsheets that is useful for a variety of applications? |
| Duration: 02h 10m | 7. Caveats of popular data and file formats | What do you need to be aware of when exporting data? |
| Duration: 02h 15m | Finish |
The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.
Setup
Spreadsheets are useful for data entry and data organization, and some subsetting and sorting of the data as well as getting an overview of the data.
Software
To interact with spreadsheets, we can use LibreOffice, Microsoft Excel, Gnumeric, OpenOffice.org, or other programs. Commands may differ a bit between programs, but general ideas for thinking about spreadsheets is the same.
For this lesson, if you don’t have a spreadsheet program already, you can use LibreOffice. It’s a free, open source spreadsheet program.
Windows
-
Download the Installer
Install LibreOffice by going to the installation page. The version for Windows should automatically be selected. Click Download. You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don’t need to make one. Your download should begin automatically. -
Install LibreOffice
Once the installer is downloaded, double click on it and it should install.
Mac OS X
-
Download the Installer
Install LibreOffice by going to the installation page. The version for macOS should automatically be selected. Click Download. You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don’t need to make one. Your download should begin automatically. -
Install LibreOffice
The file LibreOffice_X.X.X_MacOS_x86-64 (whichever version of LibreOffice you have selected) should have been downloaded. Double click on this file, and LibreOffice will be installed.
Linux
-
Download the Installer
Install LibreOffice by going to the installation page. The version for Linux should automatically be selected. Click Download. You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don’t need to make one. Your download should begin automatically. -
Install LibreOffice
Once the installer is downloaded, double click on it and it should install.
Data
Download this data file to your computer: training_attendance.xlsx. The
file is an xlsx file that should automatically download.
You may need to right click or control click in order to save the file
(NOTE: In Safari, right click and select download linked
file; in Chrome and Firefox, right click and select
save link as). Make a note of the location (i.e the
folder, your desktop) to which you save the file.