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History of LRO

Ah...history.  As Jehovah's Witnesses, we have a strong appreciation for history.  History defines who we are and where we are going.  And sometimes...it's just plain interesting!  That being said...this is the history of LRO.

I started as a literature assistant back in late 2008.  I became a literature assistant just in time for the annual items rush!  I had lots of fun sifting through several pages & reading through chicken scratch (sorry my brothers!) trying to find people's orders.  Sometimes it would take a couple minutes...or more.  After a while, I thought I might be able to improve our process.

Enter Microsoft Access...

I knew nothing about Microsoft Access...other than that it was a database-type program, and that it was most likely the solution to our problems.  I took some computer programming classes in High School & Technical College, so that was a big help.  But for Access...I knew nothing.  Thankfully, we had someone at my secular job who did MS Access development, though this was not his primary responsibility.  I soon began some on-the-job training, because there was a great need for a dedicated developer.  This training, along with Google as my best friend, helped to get me going with my Access skills. Thus, I went from being a HelpDesk technician to a database developer at my secular job.

Early May 2009...

I designed my first database application at my secular job.  Feeling like I knew enough about Access, or at least to get started, I began working on LRO.  But at that time, LRO was simply called "Bookroom".  My co-worker helped me to get it started.  It didn't take long to get it functional enough to put on a laptop and bring to our Hall.  Of course, we were skeptical at first...not sure if it would really work well or if it could really replace our pen & paper method, but we quickly fixed it up to where it would work just fine.

May 25th, 2009...

After about 40 hours of work put into LRO...it was finally usable enough to fulfill our needs.  Now...time to see if anyone else was interested.  This blogspot was created, and our "Bookroom" application was given the official name of "Literature Room Organizer".  Of course it had a slow start, but I used Literaturesoft.org to find some Beta testers and to get some good feedback.  Much thanks to the brothers there for allowing me to do so!

And after much time, effort, feedback, and bug squashing...here we are today!  :-)

Wanna see how LRO looked from its infancy to today?  Check out these screenshot galleries below:
NOTE: To see which version of LRO the screen was from, look to the right under "Photo information".  Click on  "more info".  The last 3 digits of the "Filename" represent the version of LRO.