Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/87421
According to the recent AIIM white paper "The SharePoint Puzzle — Adding the Missing Pieces": "SharePoint has evolved from a somewhat lowly position to become the Swiss army knife of corporate IT departments, promising collaboration, team and project management, electronic content management (ECM), intranets and portals, records management, and more — straight out-of-the-box, and with over 70% of organizations having deployed SharePoint in some form, it appears to be here to stay." If SharePoint is a multipurpose tool that has the potential to solve many problems, and it seems to be entrenched in the fiber of law firms and legal departments, where do librarians fit into the picture? Are they harnessing this resource to improve their team efficiencies; are they creating content and sites for legal departments and practice groups? Current Projects and Future • As Lorette Weldon states in "SharePoint is Plug and Play for Librarians": "SharePoint, once seen as a playground for code and project management strategy, started to become a 'plug and play' field for the novice who had social networking skills from MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc." • SharePoint incorporates Web 2.0 functionalities, such as blogs and wikis, which capitalize on skills librarians are already using in similar social networking tools. • Librarians possess a vast knowledge of legal resources, search query protocols and innate categorization skills. These translate into a better analysis of database design and architecture and contribute greatly to robust solutions. Opportunities SharePoint is gaining ground in libraries — specifically law firm libraries. According to Jackie Fishleigh, library and information manager at Payne Hicks Beach, this trend has already taken shape in the majority of law firm libraries in the United Kingdom: "In a recent Law Society library future trends survey, three out of four U.K. law firm respondents said they worked with SharePoint." A survey I conducted also pointed to this increase. (See survey results at the end of this article) Why is this a growing trend? I believe there are several major reasons for the uptick over the last few years. • SharePoint is a platform with an intuitive tech interface and hence provides a shorter ramp-up time in terms of learning. This "nondeveloper" or "no-code" interface allows library and other administrative staff to update content and create lists without the need for HTML skills or knowledge. According to Jackie Fishleigh in "SharePoint and the Naked Law Librarian," other librarian skills that provide advantages include: • Communication Skills: Key when engaging practice group leaders on information to include and in training on new functionality • Specialist Knowledge: For better searching/ utilization of technology tools • Influencing and Negotiation Skills: To encourage better buy-in and adoption for attorneys and staff • Organization of Information: For quality, accurate and current content (we do this every day!) On the flip side, the challenges are deciding how best to solve your problem and design a solution. Because SharePoint is so flexible, configuration options are endless, and the sky is the limit. It is possible to get overwhelmed when starting out, so the best advice is to start with crafting a basic solution for a discreet and well-defined problem. Think along the lines 16 AALL/ILTA White Paper