SharePoint and the Special Librarian: A Meeting of Minds for IT and IM

Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Time: 3:00 pm -4:30pm
Where: 365 Laurier Avenue West (Ottawa), Guy Belisle Room (ground floor)
Cost: Free

Please register by emailing rsvp@caslisottawa.on.ca.

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Microsoft SharePoint is an extensive content management application being ever more widely adopted, especially since its third release in 2007. SharePoint offers a wealth of functionality, including document and records management, team collaboration, intranet development, performance metrics, social networking and web publishing. With such breadth, organizations implement SharePoint to meet a variety of business needs and information management is often the chief driver for investing in this solution.

As an information management solution, successful SharePoint projects become a “meeting of minds” between an organization’s IT and IM leaders. Melanie Sucha, an IM Specialist from MicroWorks, will give an overview of SharePoint as an information management tool, and discuss the role of special librarians and information managers in SharePoint’s implementation.

This talk will cover:

• What are the different SharePoint applications you might be hearing about and what is SharePoint actually used for?
• SharePoint’s features as an information management application;
• What should librarians and information specialists know about SharePoint?
• SharePoint’s strengths and weaknesses for managing documents;
• How SharePoint might be integrated with other information systems, such as RDIMS;
• What are special issues and risks to keep in mind when implementing SharePoint for information management?
• Why librarians and IM specialists have a critical role to play in deploying SharePoint in their organizations and the value they bring to a project team.

About the Speaker

Melanie Sucha received her Master of Library and Information Studies degree from McGill University in 2007. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Calgary. She’s since taken up residency in Ottawa, having discovered the city’s warmth and hospitality to a newcomer who will offer to clean up your shared drive.

Over the years Melanie has worked in school, public, academic and government libraries, and has more recently moved into information management consulting through her current position as IM Specialist at MicroWorks. Established in 1983, MicroWorks’ key practices areas are IT Strategy, Information Management, Constituency Management and IT Infrastructure. Within the national capital region and beyond, MicroWorks offers services to small and mid-sized organizations in all industries. From developing a collection development policy for a special library, to gathering requirements for SharePoint document management systems, to writing information governance policies, Melanie helps clients address information problems of all kinds.

Melanie has also been involved in the IM community through CASLIS Ottawa and was an executive member in 2007-2008.