A podcast by Hiran de Silva
Imagine you’ve just found a useful article on the internet. Would you copy the entire web page into a Word document and email that document to your colleague? Of course not. Instead, you simply send the link.
That simple action acknowledges two things:
- The content already exists in a central location — the cloud.
- Your colleague doesn’t need your copy. They can help themselves to the source.
We take this “digital librarian” mindset for granted in everyday life. Yet when it comes to spreadsheets, something odd happens. We fall back into old habits of downloading, copying, and emailing. The result? Dozens of versions, endless reconciliation, and a mess that absorbs entire industries of “spreadsheet clean-up” consultants.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The Role of the Digital Librarian
When you acknowledge that a digital librarian exists at the hub of your process, spreadsheets stop being isolated “paper documents” and instead become live clients in a network:
- Retrieving data directly from the source without needing you to forward it.
- Updating the central hub with processed results so everyone else is in sync.
This is the architecture that transforms chaos into clarity. Instead of paper flow, you have data flow.
Two Variations of the Digital Librarian
The digital librarian concept is not tied to one brand or product. It shows up in different ways:
- Documents as the hub — for example, Google Sheets or Excel Online, where the file itself lives centrally and multiple users access the same document.
- Data as the hub — for example, an Access or SQL database, where spreadsheets (desktop, web, or mobile) connect in, retrieve what they need, and update results.
Both are valid. What matters is recognising the librarian at the hub, and building your processes around it.
Demonstration: From Desktop to Cloud
I often show this live.
- On my desktop, I fill in an Excel spreadsheet and press a PUT button. The data is trusted to the digital librarian (a database in the cloud).
- I then open a completely separate Google Sheet. With a single GET button, the same data appears — even though this Google Sheet has nothing to do with the original desktop file.
- I repeat the process in Excel Online, on OneDrive, and again the same data flows through.
The point: the spreadsheet is not the container of truth. The digital librarian is.
Why It Matters
When people stick to paper flow, every update creates another offshoot copy. Downstream, whole teams burn time reconciling differences. With data flow, everyone draws confidence from the same master data, always current, always accessible.
This isn’t theoretical.
- Public building surveys (RAAC crisis, UK): surveyors once shuffled thousands of Excel files around Teams folders, many misfiled or incomplete. With a PUT button to the digital librarian, data went straight from site surveys into a central database. Hospital administrators could access it instantly, without reconciliation nightmares.
- Global accounts review: traditionally impossible with hundreds of budget holders across layers of management. With data flow, spreadsheets stopped being emailed and started acting as live portals to the same master dataset. The process, once abandoned as unworkable, became smooth and scalable.
Open Systems vs Vendor Lock-In
Too often, vendors build walls. They sell you a silo — a product that only works within their brand. They discourage openness, because openness weakens their lock-in.
The digital librarian builds bridges. It lets Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Power Apps, or any other tool connect freely. It separates the data from the tool, so the business chooses the best interface for the job.
The Cognitive Dissonance
We’re already conditioned to the digital librarian idea in our daily lives. Every time we share a link, use a weather app, or collaborate on a cloud document, we’re embracing data flow. Yet when it comes to spreadsheets, we relapse into paper flow.
That is cognitive dissonance.
What we need to learn now is not another “feature of Excel,” but the variations of the digital librarian concept, and how to apply them. When we do, we unlock the biggest opportunity in spreadsheets today: the shift from paper flow to data flow.
Walls or Bridges?
The choice is stark.
- Walls protect silos, keep people locked in, and stifle collaboration.
- Bridges connect people, tools, and ideas, freeing data to flow where it is needed.
That is the digital librarian. It’s simple, universal, and transformative. Or, to borrow from John Lennon’s 1974 album title: Walls and Bridges.
Whatever gets you through the night — it’s all right.
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