Have you ever wanted a faster, easier way to create a quality annual report for your library’s board? There’s a new tool from Library Research Service (LRS) that could help! This annual board report template uses a connection between Google Sheets and Google Slides to autopopulate preformatted charts in a slide deck with key statistics. Once this tool is set up, all you need to do is select the libraries you would like to compare, click a button to update the charts, and customize the text on the slides for your library. The finished product contains 17 visualizations covering everything from expenditures, collection, staffing, and salaries to visits, circulation, programming, and more. This slide deck is also customizable, so you can redesign or remove any slides.

In this training, we’re going to walk through the initial steps that all users need to follow to set up this tool for individual use and answer any questions you might have about it. We hope that each attendee can leave the session with a functioning annual board report template and feel confident about how to use it. This session will be recorded for anyone that is not available to attend at this time. 

Bios:

Sara Wicen is a Research Assistant for the Library Research Service office of the Colorado State Library. During her 3+ years in this role, she has gained invaluable experience collaborating with libraries across Colorado on a variety of research projects, delivering training, and creating data-driven content. She enjoys helping people conduct evaluations and making data accessible to wider audiences often through charts, infographics, data dashboards, and blog posts covering topics such as data collection, analysis, and visualization. She spends most of her free time exploring in the mountains. 

Dana Petersen is a Data Coordinator and Web Developer at LRS. She has been a math and technology teacher and worked in two small public libraries. Dana likes the way data adds facts to the “feels”.